20,000 illegal SIMs seized: FIA

Five held after raids in Toba Tek Singh, Gojra

LAHORE:

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials have seized over 20,000 illegal mobile phone SIMs during raids in Toba Tek Singh and Gojra.

They also arrested five people from the raided areas and Lahore, who were allegedly selling the SIMs after illegal biometric verification under the guise of franchises of various phone companies.

FIA officials said the arrests were made during the largest operation of its kind in the history of Punjab.

Among the arrested were franchise owners of various companies who were selling SIMs without verification.

They said the investigation had indicated that some serving and former employees of the companies were involved in the fraud. The investigators said some of the suspects had quit their jobs and started their own businesses because having information about the system made it easier to commit fraud.

FIA sources said the cybercrime wing of the organisation was investigating dozens of cases related to the judiciary, security agencies and elected representatives.

Senior political figures had also received threatening and immoral messages and WhatsApp calls, they added.

The sources said that when the FIA traced the phone numbers in several cases, it transpired that they belonged to elderly women or a men, poor and uneducated people and those who did not have phones or social media accounts.

Investigations revealed that the SIMs had been issued on the basis of forged fingerprints.

An official said the issuance of thousands of SIMs with the connivance of a franchise in Toba Tek Singh, a town with a population of about a million, had raised questions about the verification system. Biometric verification is somehow being done illegally, he said.

He said fraudsters frequently removed the SIM after committing a crime and switched to another one, making it difficult to catch them. 

When contacted, FIA Director Babar Bakht Qureshi said the agency had arrested dozens of people from across the country during its action against fraudsters despite limited resources.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2022.