12 SIM boxes, 100 SIMs seized in Bhubaneswar; two accused detained

Bhubaneswar, Mar 2 (PTI) The Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Commissionerate Police on Monday seized 12 illegal SIM boxes along with over 100 cards and detained two persons allegedly involved in the racket, officials said.

Acting on specific intelligence inputs, a special team of the commissionerate police raided a house in Chandrasekharpur and recovered the SIM boxes and 100 SIM cards, laptops functioning as servers, and WiFi routers from the premises, Subrat Kumar, additional DCP, Bhubaneswar, said.

A SIM box (or SIM bank) is a hardware device that houses multiple prepaid SIM cards to facilitate telecom fraud by bypassing official international gateways.

According to preliminary investigation, the accused bought the SIM cards from Assam and used them to divert international calls, Kumar said.

Kumar said the illegal activity posed a threat to national security and could also result in revenue loss.

"The gang was using China-made hardware and an application from Bangladesh. They used to visit Bhubaneswar at regular intervals to set up the system and return after installation," he added.

By rerouting international traffic through locally registered SIM cards, the accused allegedly siphoned off significant sums of money, police added. PTI BBM BBM MNB