46/2023-2024

Aizawl, May 12, 2023: Ministry of Communications, Department of Telecommunications, North-East LSA issued a press release yesterday, regarding suspected fake mobile connections in Six NE States of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland & Tripura.

It is well-known that cybercrimes, financial frauds, and antisocial and antinational activities are mainly committed through SIMs fraudulently subscribed on forged documents. In order to detect and weeding out such suspected SIMs, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has taken up the initiative of conceptualizing and implementing an innovative and indigenous Artificial Intelligence and Facial Recognition Powered Solution for Telecom SIM Subscriber Verification (ASTR) – the NextGen platform aimed for preventing the cybercrimes. The system uses subscriber images and a Telecom Subscriber Providers (TSPs) database to detect fraudulent subscriptions.

Department of Telecommunications using ASTR has detected about 1.52 lakh suspected connections subscribed based on fake/ forged documents involving many Points of Sale (PoS) of different Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) in six states of North East LSA i.e. Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland & Tripura. More than 1.47 lakh mobile connections failing in the re-verification process have been disconnected by TSPs in the region. So far, TSPs have blacklisted 493 PoS and registered 71 police complaints against the suspected Points of Sale for further investigation and necessary actions against the culprits.