SIM box racket working for loan apps busted in Tirupur

The Tirupur rural cybercrime police have busted a SIM box racket working for four foreign loan apps. The police arrested five people on Thursday night and seized 11 SIM boxes, six modems, three laptops and 500 SIM cards from them.

The arrested men used the devices to threaten people who availed loans through online loan apps and who failed to repay the loan amount on time.

The arrested people have been identified as H Mohammed Askar, 24, A Mohammed Shafi, 36, of Kozhikode in Kerala, S Mohammed Saleem, 37, M Anish Mon, 33 and S Ashraf, 46, of Malappuram in Kerala. They were booked under sections 120 B and 420 of the Indian Penal Code, 56 (b) of the Information Technology Act and 20, 21 and 25 of the Indian Telegraph Act.

A woman from Pongupalayam near Perumanallur in Tirupur district availed a loan of Rs 3,000 from Paisa Home, a loan app, on December 15, 2022. She repaid the amount. She continued to receive messages from the loan app that she was eligible to get loans.

She again availed Rs 15,000 from four foreign countries-based loan apps – Speed Loan (Nigeria), Candy Pay (Indonesia), Easy Loan (Nigeria) and Lucky Money (China) — on December 28, 2022. She received SMS continuously from the four mobile apps. She also received obscene messages to her WhatsApp number. The woman lodged a complaint with Tirupur rural cybercrime police who registered a case.

Cybercrime police inspector Chitra Devi and her team traced the mobile numbers of the unidentified people who sent the SMS and WhatsApp messages to the woman. The police traced and arrested five people from their rental rooms at Khaderpet in Tirupur city and seized the devices from them.

“We have seized 11 SIM boxes from them. The SIM boxes were used to convert the internet calls to GSM (global system for mobile communications) calls. So, it’s not easy to trace the origin of the calls. The five people helped the four foreign countries-based loan apps to convert the internet calls to GSM calls using SIM boxes. They received commission from the loan app companies. They used iTel app and VOS VOIP app to hide their identities,” said Tirupur district superintendent of police G Shashank Sai.

He added that the telecom operators would not give the gateway access to convert the internet calls to GSM calls. The five- member gang were operating illegally for the last few months.

“We have seized 500 SIM cards belonging to a particular mobile operator from the arrested people. They used the SIM cards in the SIM boxes to convert the internet calls to GSM calls. We sought the private mobile operator to furnish the consumer application details to know from where all the 500 SIM cards were bought by the gang,” said SP Shashank Sai.