Police Raids Mobilink Office in Sargodha for Dumping Active SIMs

Mobilink_logoPolice has raided a Mobilink office in Sargodha after getting tipped, allegedly from a franchisee, and has recovered a dump of pre-activated SIMs from the building, told us sources in the market.

According to sources, due to a rift between Mobilink and Franchisees over recent commissioning restructuring, an annoyed franchisee tipped the police with the information about stock of pre-activated SIMs stored in Mobilink office.

Local police eventually raided the office and recovered some 35,000 pre-activated SIMs from regional office of Mobilink in Sargodha and detained TSO (Territory Sales Officer). Police is reportedly looking for Regional Sales Manager who went missing after the raid.

Reports say that police has registered an FIR under Anti Terrorism Act and due to it’s the case has been forwarded to FIA for investigation.

It merits mentioning here that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority had disallowed pre-activated SIMs to be sold or stored by cellular operators. According to PTA’s SOP, for sale of new SIMs, customers are suppose to get the SIMs activated though 789 only after purchasing it.

Mobilink confirmed ProPakistani about the incident and said it will co-operate with law enforcement authorities to investigate the issue. Following is what Mobilink wrote to us in an email:

Over the last 17 years, Mobilink has remained committed to Pakistan, with investments of over USD 3.9 billion as well as providing direct and indirect employment to thousands across the country. Mobilink continues to respect and operate according to all laws that govern over Pakistan.

Mobilink always cooperates with all legal investigations and is ready to provide any information as per the law and the Standard operating procedures (SOP’s) laid down by GoP and PTA. At the same time it expects the law enforcement agencies to follow the given procedure and the law.

Pakistani telecom market is long dealing with the issue of un-registered SIMs, which are widely used in all kinds of crimes in the country. This is the first time that an operator office was raided for the recovery of illegally stored mobile SIMs.

Experts opine that this incident will trigger long terming impacts on the industry. They said that it is an example of PTA’s inability to control cellular companies and unregistered SIMs for which customers are made to bear the service suspensions in the name of national security.

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • This incident will trigger a war of finding or creating faults among other operators/competitors & getting them penalised from regulator and/or defaming them. This is a whole new area just opened up after this incident.

    • poor work my boy. mobilink is doing this shit since years.and they are still doing it in huge numbers.numbers u cant even think of

  • This is alarming situation about cellular companies, it seems that they are the major cause of illegal sims.
    Mobilink is caught red handed….What about other companies?

  • Mobilink mistake may provide the validity to Rehman Malik to further extent his actions against telcos …

  • bro that was 500 active sims and 35000 Rupees recover from mobilink frenchise in Sargodha…. its not 35000 sims
    Thanks Amir From Sargodha

  • Mobilink is a pathetic mobile company of Pakistan. Our company left mobilink’s corporate connections 1 year back and we are glad that we made the right decision.

  • why mobilink has not unblocked google maps uptillnow? Ufone, warid,zhong and telenor has unblocked many google applications

  • I worked for mobilink for some time. Pre-activated SIMs are not new for me. Eight (8) franchises in gujranwala illegally activate approximately twenty-four thousand (24000) SIMs every month.

  • Yeh koi police or mobilink staff ki zati ranjash ka result hai. Agar yeh waqiee
    Sahih hai to PTA ko raid karna cahye thaa, na ke DIG ko

  • Teh koi nai baat nahein hai.sub frenchises aisa kaam kr te hein apna Target pura kr ne k lye ur yeh PTA simmat sub ko maloom hai.

  • Very good step . Govt should take serious action in same way in every city.
    i personally know wholesale dealers who owns thousands of preactive Sims and they are trading and making money while those Sims are registered to the name of innocent people who don’t even know about these sims

  • PTA ( Prevent Telecom Access ) is big bul shit authority for this country as untill now we are so much behind in this sector pplz in Africa are shiting to 4G and still these __________ beaurocratics cant swtich it to 3 G .

    Also the PTA has increased the Calling rates to Pakistan , which is not good idea they have to reduce it up 0.0001 like that so that the Over seas Pakistanis can call from abroad to Pakistan either the pplz can call them from Pakistan , May be the reason for increasing the call rate s are that they want to increase the income of Pakistani Telecome companies .

    [Comment Edited by Admin]

  • I totally disagree here.
    There is some thing wrong as it seems a conspiracy against telecom and specially cellular sector, by connecting this with recent incidents taken by interior minstry, which causes the sever loss to this sector.
    I am unable to understand that how the police men just went inside and identified the 35000 pre-activated SIMs?
    We all need to know that still we are far beyond 3G hopes and by this will any international Telco think to operate in Pakistan.


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