Man acquires 300 SIM cards for fraudsters, held

Mumbai: The north region cyber police have arrested a man who allegedly procured 300 SIM cards illegally and provided them to cyber fraudsters for use in scams. The accused, Kamal, 25, used to work as an agent for various telecom companies. One of the SIM cards provided by him was used in a digital arrest scam where a senior citizen from Goregaon was duped of Rs 29 lakh, police said.The 66-year-old complainant is a retired Western Railway employee. On Dec 10, he received a video call from an unknown number. The caller was dressed in a khaki uniform and introduced himself as a police inspector. He told the senior citizen that his Aadhaar card had been used to issue a mobile number. He then transferred the senior citizen's call to the ‘Lucknow ATS Control Room' for lodging a complaint.Later the same day, the senior citizen received a video call from a man claiming to be former NIA chief Sadanand Date. He claimed that the senior citizen's Aadhaar card had been used to open a bank account in Lucknow, and transactions worth Rs 60 crore had been carried out in the account. Accusing the senior citizen of money laundering and human trafficking, he added that a 10-year prison sentence could be awarded.The senior citizen was terrified. The scammers then put him under "house arrest" and asked him to share his bank details over WhatsApp and cooperate with investigations. Further, he was asked to send his money for verification to the RBI and was assured that the money would be returned if he was found innocent.The senior citizen was asked to liquidate his and his wife's fixed deposits and mutual funds, which he did. The scammers made video calls every morning for nearly a month and asked for a detailed report of his whereabouts. He was sent a "bond for legalisation from the govt of India", following which he transferred Rs 29 lakh to the scammers.After he realised he had been conned and lodged a police complaint, investigations tracked down the scammer's phone number. It turned out the SIM card had been obtained using an individual's Aadhaar card copy submitted to a telecom company. Investigators tracked down Kamal to Chembur and arrested him for providing illegally procured SIM cards to fraudsters.