Phishing plot busted: 7,000 fake SIMs, 265 arrests in Morigaon raid spree

Guwahati, May 28: Morigaon district was about to join Jamtara as the “phishing capital” of India, but prompt and sustained operations by police prevented that.

Jamtara in Jharkhand has the dubious distinction of being known as the “phishing capital” of India because of the fact that large-scale cyber frauds originate from that area.

However, fortunately, Morigaon district police force swung into action immediately after a number of cyber frauds came to light and carried out more than one hundred raids so far.

The district police force, headed by Superintendent of Police Hemanta Das and Additional SP Samiram Baishya, led the detailed investigation and arrested more than 265 persons for their involvement in cyber crimes and over 7,000 forged SIM cards have been seized. Most of the arrests took place in the areas of Moirabari and Lahorightat and interestingly, around 99 per cent of those arrested belong to the so-called minority community.

Giving details of the modus operandi of the cyber criminals, sources said that it all came to the notice of the police in 2022 when one Sirajul Islam complained to the police that someone else had taken a loan in his name. Police got into action immediately and found that the criminals got active since the Covid period. The criminals acquired SIM cards in the name of other people by forging documents and in the interest of selling more SIM cards, mobile distributors also sold cards without thorough verification of documents. A number of SIM card distributors have also been put behind the bars in connection with the case.

Sources said that after acquiring the SIM cards in the name of other persons, criminals used Chinese and other illegal Apps, including OctroGST to get the PAN, Aadhar and even GST numbers of different persons and took loans from various agencies. The real persons came to know about that only when they visited banks for loans only to find that someone had already taken loans in their names. The criminals destroyed the SIM cards after taking loans and the persons, whose names were used by the criminals, were duped and approached police in their respective states. Most persons duped by the criminal gang were from Maharashtra, Rajasthan etc. But it was a pan-India operation by the gang.

In addition to that, members of the gang had applied for digital credit cards in the name of others using the same method and duped a large number of people. The Axis Bank alone lost Rs 40 crore because of such dubious activities of the gang, while, other banks also suffered as the culprits vanished after getting credit cards and destroyed the SIM cards.