Chandigarh, Sept 15 – Haryana Police have arrested five accused involved in generating fake sim cards linked with Paytm and Aadhar cards using Vodafone Flexi sim in Palwal district. Police have also recovered 9 mobile phones, 49 sim cards, 8 debit cards, 3 Paytm account with debit cards, 18 Aadhar cards, 20 passport size photos and a car.
These fake sim cards were further used to generate Paytm Debit Cards, fake Aadhar cards and to open fake bank accounts, which were then sold to fraudsters at a price, for committing various cyber frauds.
While giving this information here today, a spokesperson of Haryana Police said that the scam was unearthed during investigation into a case registered in Palwal in which the complainant alleged that a fake bank account had been opened in her and her sister’s name in Canara Bank. They were visiting the bank to complete KYC procedure and the bank officials informed them that they already have bank accounts opened in their names.
Explaining the modus operandi, he said that fraudsters using Vodafone Flexi sim cards which are issued by the company to retailers, the retailers took out the list of all mobile numbers which have been inactive in the last three months. From this list, they filtered out those mobile numbers which were linked to Paytm accounts and Aadhar cards. Through the UIDAI website, they found out which mobile numbers in their possession were linked with Aadhar Cards and using OTP received on the mobile numbers they downloaded the original Aadhar cards, which they used to open fake bank accounts online. The scammers also obtained debit cards of those Paytm accounts which were found to be functional on the fake mobile numbers.
These retailers served as facilitators to those involved in carrying out cybercrime by making available fake mobile numbers at Rs800, fake mobile number linked with Paytm accounts at Rs 3000, Paytm accounts with debit cards generated at Rs10,000 and fake bank accounts opened in this manner at Rs 8000-10000.
Apart from selling these details to fraudsters, there was also a nexus between the retailers and fraudsters. They withdrew the money deposited by the fraudsters into these accounts by swiping at petrol pumps or through ATMs, after deducting their commission and serving as a channel for the flow of these funds.
Those arrested were identified as Tareef, Saleem, Shabeer and Parveen Kumar, all residents of Palwal district and Pankaj hailing from Nuh district.
EOM
