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Bangladesh Telecommu-nication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is going to seek explanation from the state-owned mobile operator Teletalk of its alleged sales of pre-activated SIM at Rangpur customer care using fake identities.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) unearthed a criminal ring based in Rangpur and arrested three persons on Sunday and Monday including Rangpur Teletalk customer care's supervisor Ahmed Jahid Anwar (30).
The criminal ring was copying information of the biometric registered persons directly from the database when they sell SIM. Then, they register multiple SIMs with the same information.
CID also recovered 1,172 pre-activated SIM cards from the members of the ring.
BTRC Spectrum Management Department sends a letter today (Thursday) to Teletalk seeking explanation about how these SIMs were selling using fake identities and fingerprints.
Differing newspaper reports on the ID theft from the server, Director General (Spectrum Management) of BTRC Md Nasim Parvez told the Financial Express that Teletalk does not have any server to preserve fingerprints.
It is not possible to steal ID and biometric information from Teletalk server, he said.
"We will ask Teletalk to investigate the matter and let us know how pre-activated SIMs were selling at Rangpur customer care," he said.
BTRC will also launch an independent inquiry into the incident in collaboration with law-enforcement agencies to find out what happened.
Terming the incident unprecedented, he said BTRC legal department would decide on what punitive actions could be taken if Teletalk as an organisation or its officials were found guilty. Mr Parvez said that the commission is working closely with law-enforcement agencies on the incident.