MCA student, four others in police net

Delhi Police have arrested a 25-year-old MCA student for cloning mobile phone numbers, which were then used to threaten people.

Delhi Police have arrested a 25-year-old MCA student for cloning mobile phone numbers, which were then used to threaten people.

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The Crime branch arrested Sandeep Arya (27), the MCA student, Sanjay Kant Ansari (25) and recovering agents Manoj Sharma (49), Prince Gulati (26) and Kamal Sharma (25) from Rohini on Thursday.

Police said recovery agents were using the cloned mobile numbers to threaten customers. Till now the police have found out about 20 customers who received abusive calls from these agents.

Regarding how the 'system' works, the police said three numbers are needed to clone a mobile — the phone number, instrument number and the confidential number, available only with the telecom company.

Incidentally, the accused cloned the mobile number of customers of the same telecom company they were recovering the dues for, the police said.

Arya had developed the software to clone mobile phones. "The accused got random mobile phone numbers from a person working for the telecom company. This person would access the confidential number of the particular number from the records and give it to the accused. Arya found out the instrument number with the help of the software he developed," said Neeraj Thakur, DCP (crime).

Police said they would soon arrest this telecom company employee.

Arya, also a dealer for a mobile company and studying MCA through IGNOU, provided details of existing phones to Ansari who would sell the phones to Sharma, who runs a telemarketing and recovery agency, police said.

According to police, Sharma had hired a separate set of employees for recovery business. They would use the cloned phones for making calls and threatening customers with outstanding dues.

"Since the recovery agent was aware that he could not be traced, he would use filthy and foul language even with female customers. Till now, the Special Team has located over 20 customers who had received threatening calls from this particular recovery agency," he said.

Police claimed that Ansari has admitted to selling cloned phones to some STD/PCO booth owners as well.

“This aspect is also being verified,” he added.

The police also recovered 200 handsets, computers, software and fake ID documents from the accused after their arrest.