E-Paper
Hawala hands maintained fake exchange
LAKHS OF rupees exchanged hands through hawala at the fake BSNL telephone exchange in Aliganj. The fact came to light following an interrogation of the two youths arrested in the case.
LAKHS OF rupees exchanged hands through hawala at the fake BSNL telephone exchange in Aliganj. The fact came to light following an interrogation of the two youths arrested in the case.
While the officials of Telecom Monitory Cell, Department of Telecom Delhi were still camping here to probe the international call racket properly the cops were seen nonchalant to trace the hawala links in Lucknow.
The two officials of the Telecom Vigilance wing Ashok Kushwaha and Ashok Kumar had intimated the SSP Lucknow about the illegal telephone exchange. They sought police help in unearthing the racket and later the cops conducted the operation.
The gang was about to shift its base in a few days, as they could not run the illegal trade from one place for a long time. The Delhi-based Telecom Monitory Cell monitors all calls and especially the international calls made or received in the country.
Since the cell detects such calls made through an illegal operator systems, the vigilance wing immediately was alerted and the operators were traced soon.
The telecom officials revealed that the Government was incurring loss of Rs 3.25 per calls being made and received at the illegal telephone operator. The accused were bypassing authorised and licenced international long distance operator regulations.
It was also revealed that the youths Narendra Rai and Shanti Bhushan used to divert international calls made from the US and European countries to their customers in various districts of UP. These calls used to be made in connivance with the links of the gang based in these countries.
Rai used to receive money in lakhs through hawala either here or in Delhi. The duo was using 44 SIM cards and 30 CDMA sets of a private mobile operator and had acquired Leased Internet lines to run the trade.
The gang used to receive the calls through Internet and divert it on mobile phones to pass on the calls to their customers. The gang used to get money merely to receive and forward the calls to the destination. The calls used to show local phone numbers instead of ISD number.
The monitory cell of the telecom department had detected separate long duration calls being made to dozens of the mobile phone numbers on same time.
This had alerted the officials and they laid a trap.
The telecom officials revealed that the wing had caught similar racket in Amritsar on January 4 and another in Gudgaon in December with the help of Economic Offence Wing. The gang operating in Amritsar was using 256 SIM cards simultaneously to receive the calls.
