Criminals might have found a new way to avoid being tracked down by the law enforcement agencies and obtain SIM cards by someone else’s Aadhaar authentication. This is what the Bengaluru police have discovered while investigating two cases.

Discrepancy

The police said, in both the cases the Aadhaar details of those applying for a SIM were kept by the dealer and SIM cards were issued to some unknown people.

Police said that the dealers are using some network operator’s policy of issuing up to 10 SIM cards to an individual after identifying his or her Aadhaar details to obtain the SIM cards fraudulently.

In the case of the missing techie, Ajitabh Kumar, while investigating the police found that the last person to contact him on December 18 used a phone having an Aadhaar-authenticated SIM card but the SIM was registered in someone else’s name.

Kumar Ajitabh, a 29-year-old software engineer, hailing from Patna, was working in Bengaluru, had listed his vehicle in Olx for sale. The person had contacted Kumar to buy his vehicle.

“When we tried to trace the phone number of the buyer registered on the site, the trail led us to another person who had never purchased such a SIM,” a police officer said to Hindustan Times, adding that his biometric authentication for the Reliance Jio SIM was recorded.

The person, when questioned by the police, told that although he had visited the store, had never purchased any SIM.

“This person, who is illiterate, was asked to provide biometric authentication by the dealer. However, that person did not get the SIM, and the dealer has confessed to having sold it for Rs 1,000 to some unknown person,” the officer said, refusing to provide more details on the case and of the SIM card dealer as the techie is yet to be found.

Jio Says

A spokesperson for the Reliance Jio said that the biometric authentication system followed by the company was very secure and any malpractice was easy to detect. “We follow a two-step authentication process for SIM card purchases where the dealer and the buyer both provide their biometrics. In this way, we can track down the dealer if any malpractice has occurred,” the spokesperson said to Hindustan Times.

In another case, through the same means, a gang of 10 robbers had allegedly got SIM cards a day before they committed burglary in the house of one Mahadevaiah in Bengaluru last August.

A senior police officer said that the robbers acquired the SIM from the dealer, Praveen, which was registered in the name of Chandraiah, who had earlier purchased a SIM from Praveen, through the photocopy of his Aadhar letter. “The dealer made multiple photocopies of the card and registered SIM cards in Chandraiah’s name,” the officer said.

Praveen has been booked for collaborating while police are worried about the potential misuse of the network operator’s policy to issue multiple SIM cards against one Aadhaar profile.