Bhayandar cops bust SIM card racket

A 43-year-old man has landed into the custody of the Bhayandar police for his involvement in running a pre-activated mobile SIM card racket here on Monday.

Following a tip-off that a pre-activated SIM cards of various mobile service operators were being sold in the region, a police team from the Bhayandar police station led by Sr. PI Bhaskar Pukle and SDPO-Suhas Bawache with the help of a decoy customer established contact with the suspect ( name withheld) who works with a local catering firm but apparently doubled up as a supplier of SIM cards. The decoy struck a deal with the accused and procured five pre-activated cards for Rs.1,000 each, following which the police team swooped down and caught the accused red-handed late on Monday night. The accused who was found to be in possession of around 25 SIM cards was arrested and booked under sections 420, 465, 468 and 471 of the IPC police said. Not ruling out the misuse of cards by criminals and anti-social elements, Pukle said, “We are investigating to find out if it's a much bigger racket as the arrested accused sold the pre-activated SIM cards to anyone by charging Rs.500 to Rs1,000 per card. It appears that many people without addresses and identity proofs procured the SIM's some of which some had a pre-paid balance of Rs.100.”

The accused has been remanded to police custody. Further investigations were on.