Kerala Police arrest Abdul Roshan, a supplier of SIM cards to cyber criminals, seize 40,000 cards

Malappuram Cyber Crime Police has arrested Abdul Roshan, a native of Hubli, Karnataka, for his alleged involvement in a fraudulent SIM card business, and seized 40000 fraudulent SIM cards and 180 mobile phones.

Abdul’s arrest took place in Madikeri, Karnataka, following an investigation led by Kerala’s Malappuram District Police Chief S. Sasidharan and Cyber Inspector I.C. Chitharanjan in a cyber fraud case.

The victim, hailing from Vengara, incurred substantial financial losses after engaging with a share market website link advertised on Facebook. Subsequently, cyber criminals posing as customer care representatives from the share market site persuaded the victim to make significant deposits into various accounts. However, the victim neither received any returns nor recovered the deposited funds. The cyber criminals reported to have extorted Rs 1.08 crores from the victim.

Abdul Roshan runs a fraudulent SIM card business, utilising a network of mobile shop owners around the state. These shop owners reportedly get customers fingerprints to activate counterfeit SIM cards, which they subsequently sell to Roshan for Rs 50 each. Abdul thereafter offers these cards to cyber criminals. This illegal activity not only violates the privacy of individuals, but it also poses a serious threat to national security.

The illicit SIM card trade has been intertwined with terrorist and anti-national endeavours. In a past incident, terrorists apprehended were discovered to have acquired SIMs using counterfeit copies of innocent individuals’ ID cards.

In 2023, Tamil Nadu cyber-crime police busted a cyber-crime gang operating from Coimbatore, seized 22,735 SIM cards, 11 laptops, 19 desktop computers, 292 mobile phones, 23 SIM modem boxes, and nine ATM cards with chequebooks, and arrested the mastermind of this business Syed Raghib Khursheed from New Delhi.