‘Cyber offence’: Vizag man held for trying to smuggle 24 SIM cards out of India

Bengaluru: The Bengaluru police have arrested a 55-year-old man from Visakhapatnam for attempting to smuggle SIM cards out of India, police officials said on Sunday. 

The suspect is Nara Srinivas Rao from Daba Gardens in Visakhapatnam. 

On April 18, an X-ray screening coordinator for DHL Express complained to the police that 24 SIM cards were found inside denim trousers in a shipment booked for Taiwan in Rao’s name on April 5. The complainant claimed that Rao had hidden the fact that there were SIM cards in the shipment. 

The Bangalore International Airport police registered a case under Section 42(3)e (obtains subscriber identity modules or other telecommunication identifiers through fraud, cheating or personation) of the Telecommunications Act, and sections 424 (dishonest or fraudulent removal or concealment of property) and 120 (concealing design to commit offence punishable with impris­onment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Rao was arrested a few days ago by the investigators. He is a Class 12 dropout and is presently unemployed, according to the police. 

"The SIM cards were procured locally,” a senior police officer told DH. "Prima facie, they were to be sent to Cambodia — most probably for cyber offences." 

Related case 

The officer said that further investigations were underway and they were investigating if Rao was connected in another case registered at the police station on April 22 where Blue Dart Express staff found 111 undisclosed SIM cards in a shipment tagged to an address in Chennai. 

"All the booking details given in the second case from Chennai are fake," the officer said.