The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blocked more than 5.1 million illegal SIM cards and shut down 83 websites involved in their sale over the past year as part of a major crackdown on cyber fraud.
A total of 5,122,000 SIMs were blocked to clean the telecom database, including 891,000 inactive SIMs which were either disabled or recycled. SIMs registered in the names of deceased individuals accounted for 3.2 million blocked connections, while 69,000 SIMs linked to canceled or confiscated identity cards were also disabled. Additionally, 783,000 SIMs registered on expired CNICs and 179,000 SIMs of foreign nationals who had returned to their countries were blocked.
The authority carried out the operations in coordination with the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCIA). Across 24 cities, 76 raids were conducted targeting illegal domestic and international SIMs, resulting in the confiscation of 5,300 local SIMs and 8,000 international SIMs.
During the year, 99 biometric devices and over 250,000 digital fingerprints were seized. Law enforcement also arrested 71 individuals in 44 raids related to local SIMs and 46 suspects in 32 raids targeting international SIMs.
To prevent further abuse, PTA has now made three-factor authentication mandatory for SIM sellers and implemented geofencing and live fingerprint verification on biometric devices.
