THE Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) revealed that pre-registered subscriber identification modules are being sold in social media sites such as Facebook.

According to PAOCC Undersecretary Gilbert Cruz, the pre-registered SIM cards are being sold for P500 each.

That is why, Cruz said, there is an urgent need to be more stringent in the regulations that would aide the SIM Registration Act.

“If you type ‘registered SIM cards’ in Facebook Marketplace, some results appear. Some are semi-registered SIM cards and used SIM cards,” Cruz said.

According to Cruz, stringent SIM registration measures are being done to curb activities of syndicates that are into scams, especially these Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO) and the loan, crypto and love scams.

Cruz said that the pre-registered SIM cards would give way to more online and text scammers measures in evading detection and capture by law enforcers.

On the other hand, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said that they are moving at arresting the increasing selling of pre-registered SIM cards on Facebook Marketplace and other electronic shopping or e-commerce platforms in a bid to crack down online scams and cyberfraud.

The DICT warned that such violations is punishable from six months up to six years and/or a fine of not more than P300,000.