Kolkata, February 17 – A SIM box racket was busted with the arrest of one person in connection with a cyber fraud case involving over Rs 3 crore in Kolkata, the police said on Tuesday.
The arrest was made for duping a Kolkata couple of over Rs 3 crore by threatening them with digital arrest.
The accused, identified as Mohammad Amjad (38), was arrested on Monday after the police conducted a raid in Amherst Street in central Kolkata.
Police sources said the name of the accused was learned after interrogating Abir Sheikh, who was arrested by the Bidhannagar Police recently for running a similar SIM box ring.
According to the police, the crime took place in October last year.
Allegedly, Bidhan Ghoshdastidar, a businessman from Behala, was duped by a person posing as an official of a courier company and claiming that banned drugs were found in a parcel in his name.
The police said that the CBI and ED were investigating him. After that, another person introduced himself as a CBI officer, Amit Kumar, and made a video call to Bidhan. During the video call, Bidhan and his wife were threatened with arrest.
The fraudsters asked them to turn on the video of their mobile and phone to keep the couple's movements under 'CBI surveillance'. The couple agreed out of fear. During the video call, fake ID cards and documents of CBI, ED, and RBI were also shown. Later, two more people joined the video call, claiming to be IPS officers. They allegedly threatened to arrest them. After that, they said that if the couple paid the money, they would be exempted from all charges. Otherwise, they could be arrested. The couple sent a total of three crores and one lakh rupees to the fraudsters' bank account.
When the couple realized they had been cheated, they filed a complaint with the cyber police station. Based on that complaint, the police arrested Amjad. He also has a shop on Marquis Street.
Before the arrest, the police searched his premises and seized several illegal items. A total of 12 SIM boxes, a laptop, nine routers, a WiFi-equipped CCTV camera, 17 mobiles, 2,250 SIM cards, LAN, cables, etc., were seized.
Investigation revealed that these calls were not made from ordinary mobiles, but were made using a special device called a 'SIM box'. This is a device that allows international calls to be made as ordinary local calls over the internet by inserting multiple SIM cards at once. In simple terms, it makes it possible to hide the source of the actual call. As a result, a large number of calls can be diverted, bypassing government regulations.
"The investigation also revealed that a person named Abir Sheikh was running such a SIM box network in the Baguiati, Rajabazar, and Esplanade areas of Kolkata. He used virtual numbers and a VPN in Bangladesh to hide his real location. The investigation also revealed his Malaysian connection and identified some associates who supplied him with SIM cards," said a police source.
"After a period of surveillance, on the basis of information from the Department of Telecommunications, the Bidhannagar Commissionerate arrested Abir Sheikh with a SIM box from the Hatiyara area of Baguiati on the morning of February 14. Based on his statement, our team reached the Amherst Street and Park Street police stations," said the source.
Initial interrogation revealed that Abir, a Bangladeshi national, was actively involved in illegal call routing. However, according to the investigation, the ringleader of this gang is Biplab Hossain, a resident of Tripura. Along with him, a Malaysian national named Chung Wei Kiat, who came to India on a medical visa, is also involved. Investigations are underway to find out who else is involved in this gang and how extensive its international connections are.