Karnataka   

Probe into SIM card fraud intensified

CHICKBALLAPUR: The Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) police have intensified the investigations into the antecedents of an employee of Air India-Singapore Airport Terminal Services (AI-SATS) who had fraudulently obtained 20 SIM cards.

Sources in the police told The Hindu on Wednesday that Imran Pasha, who has been arrested on charges of forgery and fraud, had forged the signature of a senior official of AI-SATS on the company’s letterhead and procured the SIM cards in the company’s name.

Although preliminary investigations have indicated that Pasha’s antecedents were “clean,” investigators are keen on knowing to find out why he had fraudulently obtained 20 SIM cards. “We do not want to take any chances and we will probe the matter thoroughly,” the sources said.

Pasha, son of a silk merchant from Shidlaghatta in Chickballapur district, is a resident of Viveknagar in Bangalore. He had been working with AI-SATS ground handling agency at BIA in Devanahalli for the past few months.

The investigators have found that Pasha had taken on his mobile phone photographs of flights, warehouses and cargo being loaded into the flights.

The sources said they were not fully convinced by Pasha’s claims that he had purchased the SIM cards in bulk as the tariff would be cheaper for bulk connections.

Pasha, who is now in judicial custody, had distributed the SIM cards among his friends and colleagues. The police have seized all the 20 SIM cards, of which only 10 had been activated, the sources said.

The Bangalore-based SIM card dealer has told the police that as a written requisition for supplying the SIM cards was made by a leading company, he had provided the SIM cards to Pasha. The dealer claimed that he was not aware that it was a forged letter.

The fraud came to light in the second week of December after an AI-SATS official received the phone bills for certification.

Subsequently, the company lodged a complaint in the BIA police station and dismissed Pasha from service. His airport entry pass has been withdrawn, the sources said.

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