BENGALURU: In a joint operation, the Military Intelligence (Southern Command) and the Anti-Terrorist Cell (ATC) of the CCB have arrested two persons who had allegedly set up an illegal telephone exchange and were converting international calls into local calls, causing loss to telecom companies and putting national security at risk.
The arrested are Ibrahim Pullatil (36), who hails from the Mallapuram district in Kerala, and Gowtham V (27), a native of Tirupur district in Tamil Nadu. The police have seized 30 SIM box devices and more than 900 SIM cards from them. Each SIM box device can hold 32 SIM cards.
Police said the operation was conducted based on information gathered by the Military Intelligence. It was found that the accused had installed SIM box devices at six locations in BTM Layout and all six places were raided simultaneously.
“By setting up the illegal telephone exchange, the accused converted international calls into local calls bypassing authorised routers. They had their own set of customers, including small firms and individuals, who have to make international calls daily as part of their business. The accused charged Rs 1 per pulse rate against Rs 10 as charged in the legal channel. They used to make anywhere between Rs 10-15 lakh a month by running this illegal business,” an official said.
Further investigation revealed that Pullatil was running the illegal trade. “He was part of an international network in Dubai and started the telephone exchange after returning to India... Besides, it was also found that he was running a hawala trade and we are looking into it,” the official added.