Bhadrak police busted an illegal pre-activated SIM card business and arrested a person in this connection on Friday.
The accused was a wholesaler of SIM cards and used to sell them to various retailers. The accused has been identified as Bidyadhara Sahu from Bhagapur under Basudevpur police limits.
The incident came to the fore after the Ministry of Telecommunications, flagging concern about a duplicate SIM card activation racket in Odisha, shot a letter to the Bhadrak SP through the CID (Crime Branch).
Swinging into action, Bhadrak police later launched an investigation and nabbed the accused before producing him before the court.
As per reports, Sahu was activating SIM cards by using ID proof and biometrics of customers multiple times to fulfill his sales target set by service providers.
Bhadrak SDPO Sourav Otta said, “He distributed SIM cards to retail outlets. The whole-sellers have targets from the service providers. When the retailers fail to achieve the target for him, the accused used to activate SIM cards with multiple use of biometrics of one customer.”