3 days after Mumbai Police probe, DoT cuts 30,000 illegal mobile SIMs

3 days after Mumbai Police probe, DoT cuts 30,000 illegal mobile SIMsMay 16, 2023Mumbai, May 16 (IANS) Three days after the Mumbai Police’s major expose of a racket of fake multiple SIM cards issued on single names, the Department of Telecom swung into action and has deactivated 30,000 such SIMs in Mumbai, an official said on Tuesday.The SIM cards, issued by telephone service providers, were analysed by DoT Mumbai LSA on its subscriber database and 62 groups identified where similar images were detected for different names.With a threshold of 50 or more subscribers in a group, there were a total of 8,247 subscribers identified in these 62 groups.”There appears to be connivance of point of sale (PoS) i.e. mobile SIM sellers, especially those whose contribution of fake SIMs in a group is abnormally high, in issuing the suspected fake SIMs,” said a top DoT official.In one such case, a total of 684 numbers (SIMs) were issued against one face, said H.S. Jakhar, the Additional Director General, Telecom, DoT Mumbai, while launching the Sanchar Sathi Portal, in the presence of DDGs Nandlal Suchdev, Kishore Ekka, and Ajay Kamal.He said that DoT has used an innovative, indigenous, Next Gen Platform (using SuperComputer) ASTR-AAI and facial recognition powered Solution for Telecom SIM Subscriber VeRification for this work.”It has been designed and implemented by DoT with a vision to analyse, identify and weed out fake/forged, non bonafide mobile connections for curbing the menace of cyber crimes, it compares subscriber photos and database provided by TSPs, and the output is generated in groups of similar photos of subscriber with different names,” Jakhar said.He admitted that such is the expertise level of fraudsters that they have created fake proof of identity/address documents, which can never be detected by human beings by analysing a single case in isolation.As mobile connections subscribed on fake/forged documents may be used in cyber-crime, financial frauds, anti-national activities etc, the DoT took up the challenge for preventing cyber-crimes using ASTR – the NextGen platform for detecting and weeding out fake/forged SIMs.Meanwhile, a total of 6 FIRs have been lodged by the Malabar Hill, V. P. Marg, D. B. Marg, D. N. Nagar, Sahar and Bangurnagar police stations in Mumbai.–IANSqn/vd