A friendly conversation on a train journey turned into a nightmare for a Delhi woman after a fellow passenger allegedly hijacked her SIM card to drain her credit cards.
Delhi Police have arrested two brothers who specialised in stealing "Unique Porting Codes" (UPC) from unsuspecting travellers under the pretext of making an urgent phone call.
The duo allegedly gained the trust of fellow passengers while travelling, stole their mobile phone porting codes, and drained their bank accounts.
The investigation began following a complaint from Vandana Gupta, a resident of Rohini Sector 6. In January, while returning to Delhi from Kanpur with her son, she met a man named Sachin Gupta on the train.
After gaining her trust during the journey, Sachin asked to borrow both Vandana's and her son's mobile phones on the pretext of making an urgent call. He returned the devices shortly after, but the damage was already done.
On January 23, the victim realised something was wrong when both her and her son's mobile numbers were suddenly deactivated. A week later, on January 30, 2026, she discovered three fraudulent transactions on her credit card:
First transaction: Rs 20,550
Second transaction: Rs 2,627
Third transaction: Rs 25,687
Vandana immediately filed a complaint on the national cybercrime portal, leading to an FIR at the Rohini Cyber Police Station.
A team led by Inspector Praveen Chauhan traced the money trail. They discovered that Rs 20,000 had been transferred to a Kotak Mahindra Bank account belonging to a man named Nitin and withdrawn from an ATM that same day.
Following a raid in Burari, police arrested 26-year-old Sachin Kumar Gupta and his 23-year-old brother, Nitin Kumar Gupta.
According to police, Sachin had previously worked at a well-known mobile store, giving him knowledge of SIM porting.
While holding the victim's phone on the train, Sachin secretly initiated a SIM port request and noted the Unique Porting Code (UPC). Using this code, he obtained new SIM cards for the victims' numbers, registered under his brother's name. Once the new SIMs were activated, he installed the CRED app. Since he now had the phone numbers, he bypassed security via OTPs to gain full access to the credit cards.
Police recovered a Motorola mobile phone and the Kotak Mahindra ATM card used in the crime. According to police, the mastermind, Sachin, is a BSc dropout who previously worked for Uber. His brother, Nitin, is a B.Com graduate who worked in a retail showroom. Both are now in custody as police investigate if there are other victims.
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