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17 January 2010
According to a Sharjah Police official, the gang, headed by 33-year-old Pakistani national Falak Seyar Hajji, managed to collect a sum of Dh300,000 in two months’ time from random victims.
The arrests came as a result of a special report published by Khaleej Times on January 10 talking about the phenomenon of a large number of men, most of them Asian labourers, selling prepaid phone credit balance — ‘raseed’ — to people hailing from lower-income strata, who cannot afford to buy the minimum credit of Dh25 sold by cellphone service providers. It pointed out that while the phenomenon picked up following the recession in which many lower-income workers lost their jobs, it raised the hackles of the authorities who deemed the activity illegal as they haven’t procured licenses and also a security threat.
“The gang was headed by Falak who, through the money earned illegally, was able to issue visit visas to various Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals to work in his team. Upon their arrivalin the UAE, he used to offer them accommodation, mobile phones and mobile cards to be used to contact their victims who were mainly Asians, Arabs, a majority of whom were women. The fraudsters used to ask them to transfer credit balance to a certain mobile number.”
On arresting the head of the gang various SIM cards were found in his possession, the credit balances on which had been filled with accounts of people who had believed in the scheme offered by the fraudsters.” Falak bought a huge number of SIM cards by using fake identities or by buying them from people departing from the country. The official added that during interrogation with the arrested gang, it was found out that some of the victims used to transfer mobile account balance ranging from Dh500 to Dh30,000.
“A total of Dh4,000 to Dh5,000 of mobile balance account was daily collected by the fraudsters and within a period of two months, Dh300,000 was collected. The head of the gang appointed various Bangladeshi and Indian nationals who used to roam on the streets offering mobile credit balance at cheap rates.”
Sharjah Police arrested the other gang members including Pakistani nationals 22-year-old Tariq and 21-year-old Mohamed Khan and Bangladeshi nationals Faisal, 26 and Alam Al Deen. The search is still on for others involved in the racket.
Sharjah Police warns people to not believe the claims of unknown callers. The police official said that in the last few years many gangs involved in similar such activities had been arrested. The Ministry of Interior launched a media campaign where a million text messages were sent to mobile phone users warning them against falling prey to such fraudsters. Sharjah Police has urged residents to directly contact the police if offered cellphone credit balance by people roaming in streets.
