Jalpaiguri district police have constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the use of SIM cards issued from the district for different cybercrimes.

The decision followed recent arrests in the district where it was found that the SIM cards issued were used in several crimes by rackets involved in siphoning money from people through digital fraud and other means.

“We have formed the team to probe the case and to find out whether some other people are involved in it. The team will check out whether SIM cards which were issued in our district were sent to other places so that those can be used for unethical and illegal means. It will be headed by Samir Ahmad (the additional superintendent of police, rural),” said Khandbahale Umesh Ganpath, SP,
on Tuesday.

A few days back, police recovered some pre-activated SIM cards and arrested Arnab Kundu from Kshudirampally in Malbazar, Sunil Prasad from Nagrakata, and Narendra Thakur from Matiali, all located in the district.

During the investigation, the police found that they all had connections with a private call centre run from Madhyamgram in North 24 Paraganas.

“We suspect they might have connections with inter-state rackets involved in cybercrimes. We had received information through the cybercrime portal of the state that calls were made by fraudsters to people from 166 SIM cards which were issued in Jalpaiguri in the name of different persons,” said a police source.

Khandbahale said people should buy SIM cards from recognized shops.

“Also, one person should get his biometrics scanned or share his aadhar details only once while collecting a SIM. Some unscrupulous people use these details to activate multiple SIM cards without the knowledge of the person whose information is being used. They later sell these SIM cards at exorbitant prices and those are being used for various crimes,” he said.

Police have found that Arnab Dutta, who was nabbed in Malbazar, had issued several SIM cards from his shop. His shop has been sealed and the police are trying to find out who he sold the cards to.

“We have information that such SIM cards were used from far-flung places like Maharashtra and Delhi. However, when we checked with the persons against whose names the cards were issued, they told us that they had never used such SIM cards. From now on, the special team will probe the case to gather more details,” said a police officer.