Illegal cellphone lines sold on the black market puts users at risk

Is the cellphone line you are using the only one registered under your name? There could be another line registered under your name without your knowledge, potentially used by an unknown individual or a person wanted for security reasons. 

Recently, it has been discovered that thousands of illegitimate cellphone lines have been introduced to the black market, without registering them under their users' identities.

The alarming fact is that this has been done by employees working at Touch points of sale, which activate cellphone lines through their online service. 

In other words, under the law, if a person wants to buy a line from a point of sale, the concerned employee is supposed to obtain their photo and identity and sell the line at the official price. 

However, what happened was that employees opened lines under fake identities or without the knowledge of the people whose identities were used, and then sold these lines to unknown individuals at much higher prices than the official price, making substantial illegal profits. 

Consequently, the line appears in the company's system under one name, while it is being used by another person.

Who is willing to purchase these lines at prices higher than the official price? Wanted individuals, drug dealers, gang members, or people who buy them for personal purposes, to name a few. 

These people benefit from purchasing lines in the black market to evade surveillance and security pursuit. They use the line for a very short period and then replace it with another.

These illegal operations, which facilitate criminal activity and forge subscriber data, have been under investigation by the Cybercrime Unit. Several arrests have been made, and there is suspicion of employees and an organized gang involved due to the large number of illegitimate lines. 

The Cybercrime Unit has requested data on all points of sale and the number of Touch lines issued monthly since the beginning of 2018.

This case requires further investigation to control this phenomenon, reaching the administration responsible for managing points of sale and monitoring them.