B'luru sextortion case: CID police arrest trio for SIM racket

Bengaluru: The cyber police under Karnataka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), probing a sextortion case arrested three persons who are alleged to be involved in over 3,900 cyber crime cases across India.

The accused identified as Mohammed Mujahid, Mohammed Ikbal and Asif were arrested from Haryana on Friday.

It is gathered that they used to activate SIM cards, e-wallets, and sold them to racketeers involved in different modes of criminal activities, including sextortion, across the country.

The trio was in possession of 120 sim cards and over 150 Aadhaar cards. They have supplied more than 5,000 cards to fraudsters in Rajasthan and surrounding areas in the last two years, sources said.

“Based on the information shared with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre conducted a detailed analysis and established links of the arrested persons to 3,951 cases across the country,” the CID said.

A 45-year-old man had lodged a complaint with the CID police station on August 22 this year after he received images of the private moments he shared with an online friend. Later he got a call demanding money and the caller threatened to make the images public.

While investigating this case, the team found that miscreants were using SIM cards that were obtained by giving fake documents. Following a detailed investigation, the CID sleuths traced the accused to Haryana.