The cyber crime police station of Sivaganga district has busted a Coimbatore-based gang involved in siphoning off money from bank accounts of gullible people with 18 persons and seized as many as 22,735 SIM cards.

Tracking the location, the Sivaganga district police reached Peelamedu where one Shikka Marketing company from Srinagar was operating.

The police found huge number of fake SIM cards, SMS sending softwares running in several laptops and desktop computers.

The company, run by a couple N. Saravanan (52) and Bharathi (48) of Veeriyapalayam Road, employed seven women and was paying them to send the messages.

The police seized 22,735 SIM cards, 11 laptops, 19 desktop computers, 292 mobile phones, 23 SIM modem boxes, and nine ATM cards with cheque books.

Interrogation of Mr. Saravanan revealed that one Syed Raghib Khursheed from Delhi had provided the fake links along with the mobile numbers to which the spam links were sent. He was paid based on the volume of SMS sent.

The police have arrested 18 persons, including Mr. Khursheed from New Delhi. Others arrested, including women, were from Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Pollachi, Tiruchi, Thoothukudi, Tenkasi, and Tirunelveli.