Recently, the Federal Investigation Agency announced the arrest of a group that issued illegal SIM cards. This sculpture was carried out in three different places in Peshawar and around 10 suspects were arrested.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was also involved in the raid and fully assisted the FIA in arresting and apprehending the accused. According to FIA, the arrested gang was issuing multiple SIM cards by tampering with Afghan passports.
In addition to arresting 10 accused, FIA seized a total of 450 Afghani passports, three laptops, four personal computers and 15 mobile phones. The large number of passports and devices clearly shows that this gang operated on a large scale and was a threat.
The Parents and Teachers Association has been working hard against illegal SIM card issuers for the past few years and this arrest is a big win for the department. A similar collaboration between the FIA and PTA was seen last year when the FIA arrested a person who had issued a similar SIM card and confiscated gateways, mobile phones, switches, routers and SIM cards and seized other equipment including operators.
Other efforts against illegal SIM cards were also noticed during the year, with the FIA conducting raids in Toba Tek Singh and Gujra in March this year and seizing over 20,000 illegal mobile SIM cards. Apart from all this, Telecom Authority has also blocked 16,332 SIM cards and 14,468 IMEIs during the last year.
FIA details reveal that the recently arrested gang used to issue fake SIM cards, visas and Afghan passports and was also responsible for tampering with Afghan passports.
From all these efforts and continuous arrests, it is clear that both PTA and FIA are strongly against issuing fake SIM cards. Speaking about a similar case, the assistant chief of the FIA said, “Such gangs use illegal SIM cards and fraudulently obtain the bank account details of their victims. Since such SIM cards are issued in the names of people who do not They know how it’s done, so it has to be done. It’s not easy to track down the real culprits.