What’s the news: As many as 983 SIMs were deactivated by the Nuh police in Haryana after identifying 1,500 numbers involved in fraudulent activity near Aravalli forest region, reported Hindustan Times. As per the report, the police launched a massive crackdown in 40 villages that were determined to be “cyber crime hotspots.” Officials analysed data from several SIM cards to identify at least 10,000 suspicious mobile phone numbers active around these villages. These numbers were forwarded to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Crime Investigation Department (CID), which then narrowed down this number over the past week. The whole exercise started two months ago, Varun Singla, superintendent of police, Nuh, told HT. Police following ASTR model: The SIMs, allegedly sourced from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Assam, Nagaland, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, were used by several gangs in Nuh for “honey trapping”, “sextortion”, ATM fraud, debit/credit card fraud among others. Singla said that DoT is using the Artificial Intelligence and Facial Recognition-powered Solution for Telecom SIM Subscriber Verification (ASTR) software to detect and weed out such fake/forged SIM cards even before they are used for cyber crimes. “The ASTR analyses the entire subscriber base of all Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) and cleanses the database by identifying non-bona fide mobile numbers. We have also started a new drive to identify account numbers of cyber fraudsters and are checking National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) records for complaints registered against certain bank accounts and then sending details to the police officers concerned to register cases…
