The Crime Branch of Bombay Police in a joint operation with Military Intelligence and Jammu and Kashmir Police's anti-terror wing on Friday busted a major network involving illegal telephone exchanges in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
The Crime Branch arrested a man in the case. However, the investigating team was trying to get more details on his alleged handler who is said to be a Chinese national.
Military Intelligence had shared the information with Crime Branch regarding a call received in Bombay on a landline number located in Dongri. This was done by MI after months of surveillance and they discovered that the call originated from Saudi Arabia but when it finally reached the landline in Dongri, it displayed a local number.
This way, thousands of international calls were being routed through local numbers. This was not only a loss of hundreds of crores to the Department of Telecom but also high-security threat as the calls were being routed through local numbers and could be misused by terrorists and anti-social elements.
While probing the case with the help of cyber experts, it was found that one particular SIM card was being used with 20 mobile phones that is 20 IMEI numbers were detected while each IMEI number was seen being used by multiple numbers from Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and others.
The location of these IMEI or mobile phones would always remain the same and there was a fixed pattern of incoming calls or messages, there were more and more outgoing calls but the location of the IMEIs never changed which pointed out that the mobile phones were at the same location and never moved to any other tower.
Also, the outgoing calls were much more than a common mobile phone user and timings didn't matter. Calls would be mostly outgoing round the clock hinting that it was being run through a bot or machine.
Once the investigation started, Bombay Crime Branch through human intelligence zeroed down on two locations with the help of MI and Jammu and Kashmir Police in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
Accordingly, raids were planned at the said locations which were in Changaramkulam in Malappuram district in Kerala and NOIDA in UP. "We found that the illegal exchanges were being run using SIM boxes imported from China and these were advanced SIM boxes which were used to route international calls using high-speed internet to these SIM boxes and then were diverted using the local SIM cards", said DCP Akbar Pathan from Bombay Crime Branch.
The DCP said, "We arrested one person who was running both the exchanges and he has been identified as Hilar Mohammad Kutty, 34, resident of Palakkad district in Kerala. The accused earlier worked in a call centre in UAE and thus had the know-how of operating through SIM boxes and he was further groomed and helped by a Chinese national who gave him the technology and training".
"The same Chinese national would land the international call traffic to these illegal exchanges and help them run". it is a question of national security and so this operation was jointly carried out with MI and Jammu and Kashmir Police", he added.
The raids revealed that the calls were not made using mobile phones but were being diverted using SIM boxes.
Advanced SIM boxes with slots ranging from 128 to 32 to 4 were recovered from both the locations and which were around 5 while VOIP was also recovered with more than 600 SIM cards from NOIDA and Kerala.
What is a SIM box?
SIM boxes are generally used for running telephone exchanges which involved high-speed internet. The accused involved, were illegally routing international voice calls through these SIM boxes which then were routed through local SIM cards installed in the SIM boxes in domestic network.
This is why, the calls despite being international calls were reflected in the receiver's device as local domestic numbers. This led to huge losses to the DoT in India. It could be misused by terrorists and anti-social elements as the calls were being routed using internet. The DoT in India has not allowed VOIP calls to be routed through domestic network.
Note. From the net!
Tailpiece.
Got up at 7 - late as per our standards. Went through the chores and were on our return trip with Padmakumar, Rema and Achu guiding us out of the Thrippunithura maze. We reached Guruvayur by 1300 hrs, had lunch at the Gokulam Sabari, picked up some fruits and vegetables from the supermarket and was at The Quarterdeck by a half past 1.
In between Kecherry and Choondal, I'd a close run with a private bus on a stretch that's accident-prone. Should avoid being rash especially with Lekha by my side. Bad show, Rajeev!
The Crime Branch arrested a man in the case. However, the investigating team was trying to get more details on his alleged handler who is said to be a Chinese national.
Military Intelligence had shared the information with Crime Branch regarding a call received in Bombay on a landline number located in Dongri. This was done by MI after months of surveillance and they discovered that the call originated from Saudi Arabia but when it finally reached the landline in Dongri, it displayed a local number.
This way, thousands of international calls were being routed through local numbers. This was not only a loss of hundreds of crores to the Department of Telecom but also high-security threat as the calls were being routed through local numbers and could be misused by terrorists and anti-social elements.
While probing the case with the help of cyber experts, it was found that one particular SIM card was being used with 20 mobile phones that is 20 IMEI numbers were detected while each IMEI number was seen being used by multiple numbers from Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and others.
The location of these IMEI or mobile phones would always remain the same and there was a fixed pattern of incoming calls or messages, there were more and more outgoing calls but the location of the IMEIs never changed which pointed out that the mobile phones were at the same location and never moved to any other tower.
Also, the outgoing calls were much more than a common mobile phone user and timings didn't matter. Calls would be mostly outgoing round the clock hinting that it was being run through a bot or machine.
Once the investigation started, Bombay Crime Branch through human intelligence zeroed down on two locations with the help of MI and Jammu and Kashmir Police in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
Accordingly, raids were planned at the said locations which were in Changaramkulam in Malappuram district in Kerala and NOIDA in UP. "We found that the illegal exchanges were being run using SIM boxes imported from China and these were advanced SIM boxes which were used to route international calls using high-speed internet to these SIM boxes and then were diverted using the local SIM cards", said DCP Akbar Pathan from Bombay Crime Branch.
The DCP said, "We arrested one person who was running both the exchanges and he has been identified as Hilar Mohammad Kutty, 34, resident of Palakkad district in Kerala. The accused earlier worked in a call centre in UAE and thus had the know-how of operating through SIM boxes and he was further groomed and helped by a Chinese national who gave him the technology and training".
"The same Chinese national would land the international call traffic to these illegal exchanges and help them run". it is a question of national security and so this operation was jointly carried out with MI and Jammu and Kashmir Police", he added.
The raids revealed that the calls were not made using mobile phones but were being diverted using SIM boxes.
Advanced SIM boxes with slots ranging from 128 to 32 to 4 were recovered from both the locations and which were around 5 while VOIP was also recovered with more than 600 SIM cards from NOIDA and Kerala.
What is a SIM box?
SIM boxes are generally used for running telephone exchanges which involved high-speed internet. The accused involved, were illegally routing international voice calls through these SIM boxes which then were routed through local SIM cards installed in the SIM boxes in domestic network.
This is why, the calls despite being international calls were reflected in the receiver's device as local domestic numbers. This led to huge losses to the DoT in India. It could be misused by terrorists and anti-social elements as the calls were being routed using internet. The DoT in India has not allowed VOIP calls to be routed through domestic network.
Note. From the net!
Tailpiece.
Got up at 7 - late as per our standards. Went through the chores and were on our return trip with Padmakumar, Rema and Achu guiding us out of the Thrippunithura maze. We reached Guruvayur by 1300 hrs, had lunch at the Gokulam Sabari, picked up some fruits and vegetables from the supermarket and was at The Quarterdeck by a half past 1.
In between Kecherry and Choondal, I'd a close run with a private bus on a stretch that's accident-prone. Should avoid being rash especially with Lekha by my side. Bad show, Rajeev!
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