A special police squad led by Kendrapada SDPO Purna Chandra Pradhan on Thursday conducted raids at five different mobile SIM card distributor centres in the township area at a time by forming five police teams and seized huge numbers of SIM cards, fake documents and two computer sets. Police also detained 14 persons, informed SP Satish Kumar Gajbhiye.
The raids were conducted at mobile network distributor agencies of Docomo, Reliance, Vodafone, Aircel and Idea.In many cases earlier traced through the call details of SIM cards, police found it hard to establish the identity of the suspected due to mismatch of the details available with the network service providers.
The seizures have proved that the SIM cards were obtained in large numbers by producing fake identity proofs.“We have come through dozens of such cases in which investigation is being delayed in the district as the police fail to match the SIM card registration details of the culprit with his/her actual details,” said SP Gajbhiye.
As per a preliminary inquiry, it was found that more than 25 per cent of the pre-paid SIM card connections in the district had been obtained through fake documents, Gajbhiye revealed.
The14 detainees are being interrogated and the seized SIMs and documents are being verified. Necessary action and cheating cases would be initiated against the SIM card distributors found guilty, stated the SP, adding that more raids would be conducted in several retailer counters ahead.