A LAWMAKER from Mindanao today sought for an amendment of certain provisions of the “SIM Card Law” to address the unabated societal problem where organized crime groups buy in bulk SIM (subscriber identity module) cards for use in various online scamming schemes victimizing cellular phone users of their money and property.
Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, chairman of the House Dangerous Drugs Committee, made the call after learning from the hearings being conducted by the House Committee on Public Order that several raided POGO (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators) firms were found to have stashed thousands of recently procured SIM cards reportedly for use in their online scamming schemes.
He explained that despite the passage of the SIM Registration Act (under Republic Act 11934) mandating the registration of SIM cards, whether prepaid or postpaid, crime groups or individuals, local and foreign, have managed to play around with said law and continue with their scamming operations.
“The law was intended to curb cybercriminal activities, to address issues related to trolling, hate speech and online disinformation. But what we are seeing and witnessing today is that online scamming activities continuous and remain unabated,” he said.
Under the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the SIM Card Law enacted on December 27, 2022, postpaid subscribers are considered to already be registered with telco companies, only having to confirm the existing details they already have with the telcos.
Prepaid subscribers, on the other hand, are required to undergo registration through a telco’s online portal, with the subscriber providing photo and other details to the telco.
“What the organized scamming syndicates do is to buy in bulk prepaid SIM cards because they can always provide fake or fraudulent details of their phone users. And telco’s have no capability or system to monitor and catch these scammers who are using a subscriber’s altered postpaid SIM IDs,” Barbers explained.
“During the raids recently conducted by PAOCC (Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission) agents in POGO facilities in Bamban and Porac towns in Pampanga, they recovered more than P50,000 unused SIM cards. And we all know too well that these POGO operators and workers won’t use them for good intentions,” he said.
Barbers said the various online scamming schemes happening in the Philippines include Phising, ATM skimming, identity theft, online shopping, lottery scam, crowdfunding scams, romance scams, advance fee fraud, fake websites, SIM Swap scams, SMS Phising, Blackmail scams, and credit card scams.
The others types of scams were impersonation scams, online banking scams, catfishing, charity scams, computer hacking, investment scams, grandparent scam and card scams.
“The scamming techniques involves various psychological manipulations aimed at persuading the client-victims to make a hasty, irrational and unsafe decisions to part with their personal identities, property or money to the suspects,” he said.
According to Barbers, some drug peddlers are also using postpaid SIM cards, to hide their real identities and avoid detection, by posting and selling their “coded” illegal wares in the various social media platforms.
“To minimize or stop online scamming and illegal transactions that victimizes unsuspecting victims, we should amend and add more teeth to the SIM Card Law to put a stop and/or make obsolete those various scamming schemes,” he added.
