Basudevpur: Police here have busted an illegal pre-activated SIM card business and arrested a person under this police limit in this connection, Friday.
The accused was identified as Bidyadhar Sahu from Bhagapur village under Aruha panchayat and Basudevpur block in Bhadrak district. According to the reports, Bidyadhar was a wholesaler of SIM cards and used to sell those to various retailers.
He was involved in activating SIM cards illegally by using IDs and biometrics of customers multiple times to achieve his sales target set by the service providers. The incident came to the fore after the Ministry of Telecommunications, flagged concern about a duplicate SIM card activation racket in Odisha, and updated the same to the state Crime Branch.
As per the instruction of Bhadrak SP Varun Guntupalli, a case (720/23) was registered at Basudevpur police station and an investigation launched in this regard. Police then arrested the accused and seized pre-activated SIMs from his possession.
PNN