Crime Combating Technical Committee (CCTC) of Makkah region said they have nabbed one of the employees of a telecom company selling prepaid SIM cards in the name of pilgrims, according to local media.

The committee earlier received a tip about the crime and set up a plan to arrest the criminal, the report said quoting a source in the CCTC.

The Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) had announced in 2012 that every phone must be registered with the mobile operator and mobile balance cannot be recharged without entering a user’s ID number along with prepaid card number, and strictly warned against the sale of unregistered and illegal SIM cards.

The criminal was reportedly selling the SIM cards, which cost SR30 with a SR25 balance and registering them under the names of pilgrims.

The committee nabbed him redhanded when they chased a deposit of huge amount in his account and a committee member made a deal with him for SIM cards. They immediately reported about this to the police and took legal action against him.

A source in the commission said preliminary investigations showed that the employee retains the copies of the identification of the pilgrims and under same identity registered nine SIM cards and registered the cards in the system of the Communications and Information Technology and Haj body system.

The source said that commission will not tolerate any irregularities related to the technology, as well as any illegal activity, especially for the safety and security of the pilgrims who came to perform Haj in the Kingdom.

Based on a study by Google, the Kingdom is ranked third in the world in terms of smartphone penetration, which stands at 73 precent of its population.

According to a report published in Arab News the number of mobile services subscribers fell by 1.92 percent to 51 million at the end of the second quarter of this year, compared to 52 million in the same period last year, said sources at the CITC.

The drop in subscribers has been attributed to a decision taken by the CITC at the end of 2012 to link the recharging of pre-paid SIM cards with the identity numbers of users. Following this decision, telecom companies forced customers to update their information and later canceled huge numbers of unknown SIM cards.