New Delhi, May 11: India TV on Thursday evening telecast a sting conducted by two reporters of The Sunday Indian magazine, in which "middlemen" provided 120 SIM cards in one go in exchange for Rs 38,000.
The Sunday Indian reporters Abhishek Kumar and Umesh Patil rang up a middleman named "Anurag" seeking SIM cards for cellphones in bulk to run a friendship club without ID verification.
The middleman Anurag met both the undercover reporters at a park near South Delhi's Lotus Temple and struck a deal to provide 50 to 60 SIM cards every week without any ID verification.
In the first instance, 120 SIM cards were delivered to the reporters in an Indirapuram flat in Ghaziabad by the middleman.
Another middleman Abdul was approached by the undercover reporters, who promised to provide SIM cards in bulk without ID verification. The SIM cards belonged to major cellphone service providers.
Abdul promised that the SIM cards would remain active for more than 15 days. He wanted Rs 700 for a post-paid SIM card and Rs 650 for a pre-paid one. The reporters, who were seeking bulk purchase, offered Rs 600 and Rs 400 respectively for post-paid and pre-paid SIM cards.
The reporters then asked whether they could get SIM cards for cellphone numbers in Mumbai, Haryana, UP and Punjab. Abdul paused for a moment, and offered to provide SIM cards for Haryana only.
"The channel managers provide these. They make the settings", Abdul revealed to the undercover reporters.
The undercover reporters then settled for 30 SIM cards each from three major service providers.
The modus operandi that the middlemen explained was this: they float fake companies, create letterheads of such companies and then seek for bulk SIM cards from service providers in the name of "corporate connections".
"We can't issue SIM cards on fake individual IDs, but bulk SIM cards are issued in the name of corporate connections, say 100 cards with numbers starting 9818...In that case you just need a printer letterhead from a company. That's it", said one of the middlemen.
Security experts say that despite strong observations from the Supreme Court and TRAI for ID verifications of SIM cards, the service providers are yet to fully comply with the instructions.
The experts said, this would eventually help the collaborators of terrorists in acquiring fake SIM cards, commit the crime and then disappear.
India today has 91 crore cellphone connections, a record of sorts, but obviously comprising of thousands of dubious users.
The Sunday Indian reporters Abhishek Kumar and Umesh Patil rang up a middleman named "Anurag" seeking SIM cards for cellphones in bulk to run a friendship club without ID verification.
The middleman Anurag met both the undercover reporters at a park near South Delhi's Lotus Temple and struck a deal to provide 50 to 60 SIM cards every week without any ID verification.
In the first instance, 120 SIM cards were delivered to the reporters in an Indirapuram flat in Ghaziabad by the middleman.
Another middleman Abdul was approached by the undercover reporters, who promised to provide SIM cards in bulk without ID verification. The SIM cards belonged to major cellphone service providers.
Abdul promised that the SIM cards would remain active for more than 15 days. He wanted Rs 700 for a post-paid SIM card and Rs 650 for a pre-paid one. The reporters, who were seeking bulk purchase, offered Rs 600 and Rs 400 respectively for post-paid and pre-paid SIM cards.
The reporters then asked whether they could get SIM cards for cellphone numbers in Mumbai, Haryana, UP and Punjab. Abdul paused for a moment, and offered to provide SIM cards for Haryana only.
"The channel managers provide these. They make the settings", Abdul revealed to the undercover reporters.
The undercover reporters then settled for 30 SIM cards each from three major service providers.
The modus operandi that the middlemen explained was this: they float fake companies, create letterheads of such companies and then seek for bulk SIM cards from service providers in the name of "corporate connections".
"We can't issue SIM cards on fake individual IDs, but bulk SIM cards are issued in the name of corporate connections, say 100 cards with numbers starting 9818...In that case you just need a printer letterhead from a company. That's it", said one of the middlemen.
Security experts say that despite strong observations from the Supreme Court and TRAI for ID verifications of SIM cards, the service providers are yet to fully comply with the instructions.
The experts said, this would eventually help the collaborators of terrorists in acquiring fake SIM cards, commit the crime and then disappear.
India today has 91 crore cellphone connections, a record of sorts, but obviously comprising of thousands of dubious users.
