2,795 SIM cards seized in Bogra, 9 arrested

Nine youths were arrested in Bogra after the Detective Branch (DB) of police seized 2,795 mobile phone SIM cards from the city’s Chak Jadu Cross Lane area on Monday afternoon. The detainees told police that the biometrically registered SIM cards were being stored prior to their sale to illegal VoIP dealers based in Dhaka and Sylhet. An expert team of Bogra DB police seized 2,370 Robi SIMs, 325 grameenphone SIMs and 100 Teletalk SIMs after conducting a raid at the ground floor of Akhand Lodge. The arrestees are Ashik Doulatana Ovi, 33; Noyon Islam, 28; Rial Sheikh, 20; Rafiul Islam Antor, 20; Rafid Hasan Khan, 26; Liton Miah Pramanik, 30; Mojurul Haque Monju, 22; Shafiul Alam Shakil, 28; and Selim Reza, 25. Ovi, Noyon and Rial were arrested after failing to produce any valid documents before the law enforcers for the storing of such a huge number of SIM cards. The other members of the gang were arrested from Kalitala area in the city following information given by the trio. During primary investigation, Ovi told the police that one of the arrestees, Rafid Hasan, had sold over 2,000 Robi SIMs to VoIP dealers in Dhaka. Rafid collected these SIMs from the retailers who had deceitfully taken several fingerprints of an individual customer during biometric registration and used those prints to register other numbers. “The culprits have illegally stored such a large number of SIM cards defying all the government rules of procurement,” Superintendent of Bogra police Md Asaduzzaman told the Dhaka Tribune. A case has been filed in this connection and the culprits were produced before the court with a seven-day remand plea.