Group selling illegal SIMs arrested in Peshawar

Six SIM activators, 400 active SIM cards recovered.

PESHAWAR: A group selling illegal SIMs was busted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the Peshawar crime circle police on Monday.

An FIA official, Shahid Ilyas, told The Express Tribune that the FIA and the police raided a public calling office (PCO) in Hashtnagri on intelligence information and arrested a member of the gang, Fazle Haq.

He said that they also seized six SIM activators along with 400 active SIM cards, adding that during investigations the owner of the PCO confessed that he was from Ningarhar province of Afghanistan.

“An illegal computerized NIC was also recovered from him,” the official said, adding that the accused had activated hundreds of unregistered SIMs without taking them out of their jackets.

Two other suspects identified as Faizur Rahman, a resident of Tehkal, Peshawar and Noorul Haq, from Charsadda were also arrested during the raid.

The gang members also confessed to illegally activating hundreds of SIMs and spreading them across the country.

The accused activated SIMs using names from voter lists and Nadra kiosk data, with registrations on names of people from Karachi and Sindh being sold to criminals and foreigners at high prices.

The FIA was given judicial remand of all the accused after they were produced before the court, which the FIA official hoped would reveal names of accomplices involved in the same business in other cities as well.