Thousands of suspicious SIM cards active abroad to be blocked 

Tamil Nadu Cyber Crime Wing busts gang that defrauded people in the name of online trading 

The Cyber Crime Wing of the Tamil Nadu police are working with the Department of Telecommunications to block thousands of SIM cards active in South-East Asian countries, especially Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.

According to police sources, cybercrime investigators probing a series of online scams deployed Artificial Intelligence tools to identify a large number of pre-activated SIM cards that were used by online scammers to make calls from abroad to people in the State and cheat them by adopting various fraudulent means.

After a surge in the number of complaints relating to scams in the name of online trading, SIM card deactivation, Credit/Debit card upgrade or blocking etc, the police found that a majority of incoming calls were from mobile phone numbers activated in the State using fake documents.

“We are working with the Department of Telecommunications to identify and block thousands of pre-activated SIM cards that are being used to commit the cybercrimes. There is a huge difference between the number of subscribers who registered with the telecom service provider seeking to activate international roaming and the actual number of SIM cards that were active abroad,” a senior officer in the Cyber Crime Wing told The Hindu.

AI to detect suspicious calls

He said the investigators were working with central agencies to track down mobile phone numbers from which an unusually high number of incoming calls were made to different numbers in the State. An AI tool was being deployed to shortlist such numbers and deactivate them if prima facie evidence emerged to suspect their involvement in cyber offences.

Special teams formed to investigate complaints of online trading scams had arrested a gang of fraudsters who cheated the people after promising them high profit on deposits on investments.

While an advocate in Madurai lost ₹96.57 lakh to online scammers in June this year after after responding to a WhatsApp advertisement promoting a high-profit International share market trading, a government doctor lost ₹76.5 lakh to another gang that lured him to investing money on buying stocks and cheated him. There were few more such cases where people trusted the claims made by the suspects and walked into their trap.

A team of the Cyber Crime Wing, Madurai, probing a frozen sum of ₹38.28 lakh in various bank accounts associated with the suspects in the case arrested six persons last week. Acting on the inputs shared by them, two more suspects - Abdul Rahman of Melur and Sulthan Abdul Kadar of Madurai, were arrested on Saturday.

Investigation was continuing in many other online frauds and police were in touch with their counterparts in some North Indian States to apprehend suspects from whose accounts the defrauded money was transacted, the sources said.

Published - November 17, 2024 08:12 pm IST