SIM Fraud Gang Busted By Hyderabad Police, Kingpin Still At Large

Hyderabad police claimed that they have busted a gang that was involved in SIM swap fraud. The police came into action after a complaint regarding SIM fraud was registered. The mastermind behind the crimes identified as Ebigbo Innocent hasn’t been nabbed so far, police said.

Police, however, say that they have found his network in India with the recent arrest of Mumbai’s Mira Road gang.

Apart from Mumbai and Kerala police, even Hyderabad city police want to interrogate the arrested gang members in relation to the cases registered in their respective jurisdictions.

Innocent alias James is only responsible for executing SIM card swap frauds across the country, which mainly target businessmen operating overdraft current bank accounts of the victims, according to police.

Hyderabad police came across the name of James after arresting six persons, including a Nigerian, Odafe Henry, and his five associates from Kolkata in January 2019. 

The name of James came up again during the recent arrest of five members of Mira Road-based SIM swap fraudsters’ gang.

With the arrest of associates of Kolkata and Mumbai of James, police also believe that they have busted the SIM swap fraud network in India with the help of these associates. 

So far, six SIM swap fraud cases are registered in Hyberabad. What basically James do is, he sends phishing mails to victims making it look like IT department mail and collects internet banking details, ID card copies and other details, including the mobile numbers of the victims. 

Indian gang members obtain duplicate SIM cards by forging ID of the victims and siphon off the money from the bank account when the victim’s SIM becomes inactive.

“During interrogation, the accused from Kolkata gang and Mumbai gang clearly mentioned that they were working with James. Though we are not certain if any of the names used by him are real, he communicates with the Indian gang members with that name,” Cyberabad cyber crime inspector K Srinivas said.