Continuing its offensive against cybercrime, the Assam Police apprehended two cybercriminals in the Morigaon district on July 3 night. Morigaon police, in an operation led by Addl SP Samiran Baishya, seized a significant amount of objectionable materials from their possession. The arrested cybercriminals have been identified as Babul Islam and Md Rukun Uddin, both hailing from the Morigaon district. The operation was carried out based on credible intelligence inputs in the district’s Buwalguri village led to the arrests of the two wanted cyber criminals.
During the search, the police team recovered 167 SIM cards, six ATM cards, four passbooks, three Aadhar cards, and four voter ID cards. During the search of the house of Md Babul Islam located at Titatola village, the Police team also recovered a total six numbers of ATM cards, four numbers of Bank Pass Books, 3 Aadhar Cards, 2 PAN cards, one Passport and four numbers of Voter ID cards. Both the arrested criminals were retailers of Airtel MSP and were involved in cybercrimes (Loan Fraud and OTP selling).
Before the arrests of the two cybercriminals, in a previous successful operation on June 24, Morigaon police arrested Aminul Haque, a prominent cybercriminal, from the Goroimari area. The Morigaon police seized staggering 238 fake SIM cards and other objectionable materials from the possession of Aminul. Wanted cybercriminal Aminul’s confession led to the arrest of several others involved in cyber fraud and criminal activities.
Prior to these arrests on July 2, another cybercriminal, namely Md Abul Kachem of the Laharighat area in the Morigaon district, was arrested by the police. Morigaon police recovered 270 numbers of SIM cards. The accused person was involved in acquiring and supplying numerous SIM cards based on fabricated and forged documents.
On July 1, a SIM Card procurement network through the use of fraudulent documents for use by an organised inter-State gang of cyber frauds was busted by Barpeta Police. 4 wanted cybercriminals, namely Md Babul Hussain, Md Saiful Islam, Md Fozlur Rahman and Md Hafizur Rahman were arrested by the police. The police team seized one Tata Tiago car, three laptops, six mobile handsets, 45 PAN Cards with photos, 200 blank PVC cards, 200 PVC Ayushman cards, 175 blank Aadhar cards, one Swipe Machine, one eye Scanner, one colour Printer and one photo scanner.
Earlier in a series of operations, Assam police busted huge gangs of cybercriminals in the Morigaon district. These gangs fraud hundreds of individuals and government institutions across the country and illegally obtain several crores of rupees using fake identity cards and phone numbers. A Vodafone distributor Mustakin Ali was arrested from the Mayong area followed by the arrest of another cybercriminal Ashraful Islam, who was a SIM card retailer. Addl SP Samiran Baishya said that these two criminals jointly obtained 24000 fake SIM cards using fake IDs. Whereas Mustakin Ali obtained 14000 fake SIM cards and Ashraful Islam obtained 10000 fake SIM cards using fake IDs.
Earlier in May 2023, Morigaon police arrested cybercriminal Inamul Hoque. The arrested cybercriminal obtained loans totalling about Rs 22 lakh from two private financial institutions in the names of various people using fake IDs and phone numbers.
169 SIM cards, 11 PAN cards, 5 Aadhaar cards, 7 bank account passbooks, one stamp and seal of a doctor, several user ids, passwords and other potentially incriminating papers were seized by police from Inamul’s possession.
In March 2023, Morigaon police arrested notorious cyber-criminal Mushabir Hussain, who procured bank loans amounting to Rs 18,30,692.00 by using fake Aadhar and PAN cards. In February, Morigaon police arrested cybercriminals Isahaque Ali, Rabbul Islam and Gyass Uddin. The three accused are residents of Moirabari’s Xogunbari village. A total of 1,720 SIM cards, a Pulsar bike bearing registration number AS-02A-H5609 and 11 mobile phones have been seized from their possession. These three cybercriminals cheated many people across the country by using fake SIM cards. So far, the Morigaon police have arrested 60 cybercriminals in the district. Interestingly, all the arrested cybercriminals are Muslims. Cyber crimes have increased in the Muslim-dominated areas of Morigaon district in the last 5-6 years.
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