SIM swap fraud back in new form

Hyderabad: Cyber crooks are back with the SIM swap fraud in a new form to dupe people. Cases of people being deceived by the conmen are being reported across the country including city as well.

A city resident lost about Rs 1 lakh to one such conman who had called him posing as an executive of a service provider. The conmen persuaded the victim to switch over from 3G to 4G.

The conman told the victim that he would send a 20-digit number, purportedly belonging to the new 4G SIM, urged him to send it to the service provider’s helpline to initiate the switch.

Once the 3G SIM on the victim’s cellphone becomes inactive, the 4G one on the fraudsters’ cell phone becomes active. The fraudsters then use it to receive OTPs of accounts belonging to the victim.

“We have seized the mobile phone of the victim and sent it to the forensic laboratory to ascertain the magnitude of hacking. We want to know, if the entire data was hacked or only a small portion,” said Additional DCP, Cyber Crimes, K.C.S. Raghuvir.He explained that the SIM swap fraud was done by obtaining a 4G SIM for the victim’s cell phone online or impersonating him at any outlet by furnishing some documents acquired fraudulently.

Investigators suspect the scamsters must be obtaining victims’ bank account or card details, including cell phone details, from bank insiders. “They try every number pertaining to the accounts and some 3G SIM card users fall for it,” the officer added.