ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blacklisted 1,407 CNICs and blocked 27,626 SIMs/numbers in a bid to control grey trafficking which is not only causing losses to the national exchequer but also posing security threats.
Official sources revealed that the PTA had been taking actions against illegal gateways which terminated grey international calls. “Such gateways predominantly use mobile SIMs, which are identified through data mining and grey traffic detection system. In this regard, around 3.6 million SIMs have been blocked since 2020.”
The authority is continuously taking actions against SIMs along with associated mobile handset IMEIs and CNICs on account of fraudulent communication from 2021 to 2023.
The PTA blocked 22,984 IMEIs and issued warnings to 123,741 to mobile numbers/SIMs registered against fraudsters CNIC.
The PTA Zonal Office Rawalpindi, in collaboration with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Cyber Crime Wing, successfully conducted three raids targeting franchisees of a mobile phone company and an illegal SIM registration vendor in Hasan Abdal, Wah, and Rawalpindi, respectively.
The sale channels were found to be involved in the illegal issuance of SIMs. During the raid, 3,550 pre-active SIMs, three BVS devices, 748 silicon thumbs, 11,000 digital fingerprints, and a printer were confiscated.
Three individuals were apprehended on the premises by the FIA team, and FIRs have been filed against them. Currently, the FIA is conducting a thorough investigation into the matter.
Prior to these raids, the PTA had filed a complaint with the FIA based on information related to the illegal issuance of SIMs by these sales channels. The raids are part of PTA’s ongoing efforts to prevent the circumvention of the Multi-Finger Biometric Verification System (MBVS).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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