Shawdesh Desk:

Organised gangs are cloning SIMs, mostly belonging to influential persons, to carry out criminal activities including extortion thanks to the negligence of BTRC and mobile companies to check such cyber crimes.

The law enforcers had arrested many scammers, but SIM card cloning by criminal gangs continues to threaten public safety.

Police have no exact data on the victims of SIM cloning but said the phone numbers of a number of OCs, UNOs and DCs have been targeted by the scammers.

SIM cloning is the process in which a legitimate SIM card is duplicated. The duplicator can phone anybody in the guise of the legitimate SIM holder.

Commander Khandaker Al Moin, director (Legal and Media Wing) of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), told the Daily Sun that they can only bring the SIM cloners to book on specific complaints, but cannot check the cloning itself.

He said Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and the SIM companies can check the practice of SIM cloning.

Kamrul Ahsan, additional deputy inspector general (Cyber Police Centre) of Criminal Investigation Department (CID), has told the Daily Sun that a number of free apps are available on social media sites, including YouTube, teaching how to clone SIM cards.

The criminals are learning the methods of SIM cloning from those sites and committing many crimes.

He said “About seven months ago, the criminals cloned the phone numbers of deputy commissioner (DC) of a district. Getting a complaint, we took action.”

The officer thinks that the BTRC can remove the free apps that enable the hackers to clone SIM cards.

“Awareness campaigns should be initiated to control such cyber crimes,” he said.

When contacted, Subrata Roy Maitra, vice president of the BTRC, told the Daily Sun that they do not have arrangements to thwart the cloning of SIM cards.  But they were trying to control such illegal practices.

On December 18 evening, Munshi  Rezwan Rahman, a boat symbol chairman candidate of Mahimaganj Union Parishad under Gabindaganj upazila of Gaibandha, received a call from the officer-in-charge (OC) of Gabindaganj Police Station.

The caller told him to pay him a large amount of money to help him win in the election. Believing, the candidate gave the caller Tk 2.8 lakh through six bKash numbers.

The caller also phoned two other boat symbol candidates of two other unions for money, but they came to the police station to confirm if the OC really called.

After coming to the police station, they came to know that the personal number of the OC was cloned.

The victim candidate Rezwan filed a complaint with the police station.

In July, the mobile number of the UNO of Babuganj Upazila in Barishal  Aminul Islam was cloned and the scammers demanded extortion from former Chairman of Madabpasha Union Parishad Joynal Abedin, but he immediately contacted the UNO and came to know about the cloning of SIM card.

One Prince Mahmud has circulated a tutorial in the internet on SIM card cloning. Like him, many so-called tech content creators are widely spreading content on SIM cloning.

Arch, a foreign IT company, is also doing so.