Illegal telephone exchange used to call J&K defence personnel busted, 1 arrested

Srinagar: The crime branch of Mumbai Police busted an illegal telephone exchange racket operating from Govandi and arrested one person on Saturday. Agencies are probing if a terror or spy network was operating using multiple SIM boxes as several calls were made to defence establishments in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

A SIM box routes international calls as local calls, allowing the box’s operator to bypass international rates charged by local mobile network operators. The SIM boxes are fitted with hundreds of GSM SIM cards procured using fake IDs.

“Two mobile numbers used to make calls were traced to Govandi. These two numbers were kept under surveillance. All the calls received by the parallel exchange were made from abroad. We have started an investigation based on the seizures,” said Akbar Pathan, deputy commissioner of police (detection 1). Sources stated that the calls were made to seek information on defence establishments.

Police seized a total of five SIM boxes, of which one was inactive, and have also recovered 223 SIM cards, 10 mobile phones, a laptop modem, connection board and batteries in the raid conducted at a room of a building in Natwar Parekh compound in Govandi.

Police have arrested Sameer Alwari, 38, in connection with the raid. The accused was living with his family in the room in Govandi. He was previously arrested in Thane in 2017 for similar crimes. After scrutinising the number and its call records, the crime branch found that Alwari made and received several calls from other countries. The accused would illegally convert voice-over-internet telephony (VoIP) calls from abroad into a local call through the illegal international gateway.

In a statement issued by Mumbai Police, the crime branch said that it received a tip-off about a parallel exchange suspected to be used for anti-national activities by unfriendly nations.

“As such calls are not regulated, they can be used for anti-national activities,” read the statement. Such rackets also lead to a loss to the national exchequer and service providers.

Investigations revealed that two numbers of the same service provider registered in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were used to divert calls.

In February this year, the crime branch has busted a similar racket operating from Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Changaramkulam in Kerala. Police seized a total of eight SIM boxes and recovered 686 SIM cards from the raids in the two cities.

(HT)