HYDERABAD
In a massive crackdown on cybercrime, the Hyderabad Police have dismantled a major nationwide “Ghost SIM” network. Dubbed Operation Octopus 3.0, the intense seven-day blitz led to the arrest of 66 individuals across 13 states.
Ghost SIMs are mobile connections secretly activated using the identities of unsuspecting citizens. Cybercriminals use these cards to mask their identities while defrauding people. Hyderabad Police Commissioner V. C. Sajjanar revealed that investigators identified 1,194 of these fraudulent SIMs, seizing 544 in the city alone. Alarmingly, 432 of these cards were sealed and ready for criminal deployment.
The arrested suspects include 44 SIM holders, two suppliers, and 20 telecom promoters or Point of Sale agents from major networks like Airtel, Jio, and Vodafone Idea. Police disclosed that these suspects are collectively linked to 76 cybercrime cases across India, involving an astonishing Rs 101.87 crore.
Investigation tactics exposed how corrupt agents exploited digital vulnerabilities. Agents ran fake free-distribution camps in villages, targeting less-digitally-literate individuals to steal their biometrics. In other instances, agents activated extra eSIMs during routine verifications without customer’s knowledge, shipping them abroad to overseas fraud syndicates. Some users were even paid to surrender their cards or trickled into sharing OTPs to create fake social media profiles.
Following successes against mule accounts and corrupt banking officials, the Hyderabad Police now plan to confront top telecom leaders. They aim to enforce stricter verification rules and plug procedural loopholes to permanently eliminate these untraceable communication lines.
