Gurgaon: An e-SIM racket linked to a cyber fraud syndicate in Cambodia has been busted with the arrest of a key accused in West Bengal last week.Police arrested Rajat Kumar (28) — a BCom graduate from Bengaluru — on Feb 8. A resident of Hasimara’s Railway Colony in West Bengal’s Alipurduar district, Rajat was brought to Gurgaon on transit remand, taken into three-day police custody and later sent to judicial custody on Feb 12. So far, eight accused have been arrested in the case from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and West Bengal.Police said efforts are on to identify the Cambodia-based handlers and trace the “largest interstate and international network behind the digital arrest scam”. Police said Rajat was active in the racket for the past eight to nine months. He told investigators that he was looking for a job when he came across a work-from-home advertisement that led him into the cyber fraud network. Officers described him as “technologically proficient and well-versed in handling mobile systems and app-based platforms”.“The accused said that he so far received a total of 19,050 USDT (USDT is a unit of cryptocurrency) from e-SIM and app enrolment, which he converted to rupees through the EQUITAS app and transferred to his bank account. Then he spent this money on travelling, eating and drinking in Jaipur, Goa and other places,” ACP Priyanshu Dewan said.The cyber crime team recovered 87 SIM cards, 42 mobile phones and one laptop from his possession. The e-SIM racket was busted months after a case was registered on Oct 28, 2025 at Cyber Crime West police station in Gurgaon. A 75-year-old retired resident of Palam Vihar was kept under “digital arrest” for nearly a day and cheated of over Rs 17 lakh after a caller posing as an officer of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) threatened him with a fake money-laundering case and demanded Rs 70 lakh. The victim stated that he received a WhatsApp video call from a man who introduced himself as an NIA officer. The caller claimed that Rs 70 lakh was credited to his bank account as commission from illegal activities and warned him of immediate arrest. The elderly man was intimidated, kept under continuous online monitoring for a day and coerced into transferring Rs 17.8 lakh.The probe into the bank trail and SIM credentials first took investigators to Barmer in Rajasthan in search of the SIM card used in the fraud, then to Siliguri and to Alipurduar in West Bengal, where Rajat was apprehended.“The investigation revealed that the Jio SIM used in the fraud was first sold for Rs 650 by two accused, Shafikul alias Safik, who then sent it via speed post to Rajat for Rs 1,100. Rajat converted such SIM cards into e-SIMs using Apple devices and shared the QR codes with handlers in Cambodia through Telegram, earning 22 USDT per e-SIM. He is suspected to have converted and supplied around 2,100 e-SIMs, earning 19,050 USDT,” the ACP said.Police said he was simultaneously involved in enrolling fake loan applications on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. He received Rs 3,000 per app enrolment and installed and supplied details of 40 to 50 fictitious loan apps to the Cambodia-based handlers. Examination of the 42 mobile phones seized from him showed that almost each device contained evidence of fake loan app development. The apps, for which licences were purchased online, were later used to dupe victims and were earlier active on app stores.
