Had forged government documents and activated 150 cards
The Meghwadi police has busted an alleged SIM card racket with the arrest of three persons who had forged government documents and activated around 150 Idea Cellular and Tata Docomo SIM cards. One of the arrested accused, Mohammad Mehfuz Sagir Khan (39), used to work for Idea; another accused Sultan Shabbir Ali Shaikh was employed by Tata; while the third, Farhanahmed Firozahmed Shaikh (25), used to make forged documents on his laptop.
Senior police inspector of Meghwadi police Vinod Shinde confirmed the development, saying further investigations into the matter are on. Sultan, a primary school dropout, had been working as an agent for Docomo for a year while Mohammad, an HSC pass, had been working as an agent for Idea for the same length of time. Farhanahmed had done a desktop publishing course and got a diploma after his HSC. He had forged the government documents on his laptop using freely available CorelDRAW software.
All are from Jogeshwari (east). Neither Mohammad nor Sultan have official documents to prove they work for a mobile network company, but by using codes given to them about 300 pre paid SIM cards were issued and activated as well, for which they claimed house verification was not done. Among these, about 150 were issued and activated on forged documents, mostly Aadhar cards. Of the 150, they gave at least 30 SIM cards to people whom they had never seen before and the police has no idea how to trace them.
Acting on a tip-off, the Anti-Terror Cell (ATC) of the Meghwadi police led by sub-inspector Salim Shaikh and assistant inspector Wahid Pathan busted the racket, seizing 28 sealed Docomo SIM card packets and 27 sealed Idea SIM card packets, 18 passport-sized photos of different persons, 15 Aadhar card photo copies, the laptop used for forging the Aadhar cards and 15 half-filled forms. Mr Pathan said, “We have written to the mobile companies asking them to block this activated SIM cards.
We have also asked them to tell us to whom these SIM cards have been issued.” Mr Shaikh said, “The accused were well aware that the SIM cards could be misused by anti-national elements and criminals.”The ATC has recovered a forged electricity bill, leaving certificate and BMC shopping licence from Farhanahmed’s laptop.
Farhan ahmed confessed he had sold such documents but couldn’t recollect to whom. The trio has earned nothing less than Rs 60,000 by getting commissions from mobile companies and cuts from the customers but only time will tell if criminals have misused these SIM cards, which are active for the time being.
