Man forges fingerprints to activate over 6,000 SIM cards for commission; held

Police arrested a mobile SIM card distributor from Peddapally district for forging fingerprints to activate over 6,000 SIM cards through the eKYC system.

The accused, P Santosh Kumar, a distributor of Vodafone prepaid SIM cards in Dharmaram area was nabbed by the SR Nagar Police based on a complaint lodged alleging his involvement in illegal Aadhaar linking (eKYC).

Deputy director of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), regional office, Hyderabad, MVR Anand on June 20 lodged a complaint alleging that the accused had fraudulently downloaded Aadhaar credentials of people from Telangana government’s registration and stamps department and misused them for activating SIM cards via eKYC mechanism.

A case has been registered against the accused under Sections 36, 39 & 42 of the Aadhaar Act 2016, 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 of the IPC & 66 (C) and 66(D) of IT Act.

Mr Kumar confessed during interrogation that he resorted to the fraud to get a maximum commission from the telecom service provider for activating SIM cards. He downloaded property registration documents from the website http://registration.telangana.gov.in to forge fingerprints thus, activating over 6,000 SIM cards within a month.

Due to the excess usage of a single machine, the UIDAI authorities initiated a probe which led to his arrest.