BENGALURU: A 35-year-old software engineer was arrested by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) for allegedly converting international calls into local ones using a SIM box and facilitating cyber financial fraud. The racket was being operated from a data centre in Whitefield.
The police have seized six SIM boxes, 133 SIM cards, 12 data storage servers, an Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange, a network router, and other equipment worth Rs 10 lakh. “There is information that similar operations are being carried out at 2-3 other places,” the police added. Ahmed was taken into custody for seven days.
He confessed to running the operation with two accomplices who are currently abroad. According to police, Vodafone received an alert from the Department of Telecommunications regarding an illegal SIM box operation that converted international calls into local ones.
The activity was traced to an IT park in ITPL, Whitefield, where around 107 SIM cards of the service provider were misused in SIM box devices to route unauthorised or fraudulent calls.
The accused, who was running a data centre as a front office, was allegedly running the racket in the back end. Even those working in the data centre did not know about this.