Mumbai: Cyber police have arrested three men for allegedly supplying SIM cards and one-time passwords (OTPs) to Cambodia-based cybercriminals running investment frauds targeting Indians through Telegram groups.One of the arrested accused, Pramod Kumar (34), a college dropout from Delhi, used at least 6,000 SIM cards and six-digit OTPs to activate WhatsApp accounts, charging fraudsters amounts ranging from Rs 12,500 to Rs 2,500 per OTP in cryptocurrency, which he got converted from private money exchanges into cash or transferred to his wallets, said cyber police. Kumar told police that he splurged Rs 69 lakh on women and trips to Goa.The other two arrested accused, Dharmendra Gupta (43) and Rajeev Gupta (51), both from Uttar Pradesh, allegedly supplied fake SIM cards to Kumar, who used them to create WhatsApp accounts and sent activation OTPs to handlers in Cambodia.DCP (Cyber) Bajrang Bansode said the three men were arrested through technical analysis after a 68-year-old Andheri resident reported losing Rs 22.3 lakh in a share investment fraud in April. The complainant had been added to a Telegram group and contacted on WhatsApp by people impersonating representatives of a reputed investment company.Senior police inspector Sandeep Patil said the fraudsters promised high share-market returns, but later demanded more money when he sought to withdraw his investment and purported profit.Kumar was at his Delhi residence when he nabbed. Police seized 100 mobile phones, 669 SIM cards, a computer, two chequebooks and a passbook from his residence.Assistant police inspector Nitin Gachhe said Kumar was involved in “OTP farming”, generating OTPs from fake SIM cards using basic mobile phones and selling them to handlers in Cambodia and elsewhere through Telegram. Payments were received in cryptocurrency and converted into Indian currency through private money exchangers. Kumar allegedly maintained a rate card for SIM details and OTPs.The police team — comprising senior inspector Patil, assistant inspectors Amol Patil, Gachhe, Vijay Ghorpade, sub-inspectors Deepak Tayade and Avinash Nalawade — also decoded a ‘Chinese-language’ WhatsApp display name used to advertise SIM and WhatsApp numbers with OTPs for sale found in Kumar’s phone. “Cybercriminals contacted Kumar after seeing the display name and placed orders through WhatsApp,” said a police officer.Assistant inspector Ghorpade said OTP or SIM farming involves managing large numbers of SIM cards to generate and receive thousands of OTPs, bypassing online verification systems and facilitating digital identity fraud. Police said fraudsters may use specialised “SIM boxes” to connect hundreds or thousands of mobile numbers directly to computers or the internet.A cyber police officer said in June, the Enforcement Directorate in Delhi had identified 36,000 active Indian SIM cards operated from Cambodia, including nearly 5,300 linked to cyber fraud cases involving Rs 100 crore across India. The probe found that Indian mobile numbers were fraudulently activated and supplied to Malaysian nationals, who allegedly operated them from Cambodia to target victims in India.
