Cops bust telephone exchange racket, arrests 1

The Mumbai Police’s crime branch busted an international telephone exchange racket operating from Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Changaramkulam in Kerala on Friday.

The Mumbai Police’s crime branch busted an international telephone exchange racket operating from Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Changaramkulam in Kerala on Friday. Police seized a total of eight sim boxes and recovered 686 sim cards from the raids in the two cities.

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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 racket’s mastermind, Hilar Thacharayil Mohammed Kutty, 34, was arrested from Kerala on Friday. “The military intelligence unit after receiving a tip-off, shared information with Mumbai crime branch in January. It said a call had been received on a landline in Dongri area from Saudi Arabia but was reflecting as an Indian number,” said Santosh Rastogi, joint commissioner of police, crime branch.

“After scrutinising the number and its call records, crime branch found that the sim card was used in 20 mobiles phones in one day,” added Rastogi. It was also found that more than 10 sim cards were being used from the same International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, said Rastogi.

Police conducted raids and seized five sim boxes, 675 sim cards, three laptops and other electronic equipment from the Noida office. Three sim boxes, 11 sim cards, one hard disk, a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) adapter and other equipment were seized from Kerala. A case has been registered against the accused at Dongri police station. “Kutty confessed to running a fake telephone exchange from December 2017,” said an officer.