Nigeria: 6 Men Selling SIM Cards to Kidnappers Arrested With 1100 Registered SIMs

The police in the FCT have arrested six suspects that allegedly specialise in selling registered SIM cards to kidnappers and other criminals in the nation's capital.

The FCT Commissioner of Police (CP), Benneth Igweh, who disclosed this while parading the suspects on Thursday, said they were arrested by a team of detectives from the State Intelligence Department (SID) led by ACP Mohammed S. Baba.

He gave the names of the suspects as Ndubuisi Okeh, Nafiu Tijjani, Nasiru Suleiman, John Njoku and Suleiman Musa.

He explained that the suspects usually sold the registered SIM cards to the criminals from N3,000 to N5,000 per card, adding that the criminals operated with other people's identities to avoid being traced or tracked through their own details.

He further said, "It may interest you to know that four different numbers could be registered under a single NIN, hence these criminals employ street SIM card vendors to get the details of unsuspecting residents who buy SIM cards and register at the same time."

CP Igweh said over 1,100 registered SIM cards, three registration machines and other gadgets were recovered from the suspects.

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