Pune illegal telephone exchange: 2 more held, ATS hunting for mastermind

On August 24, ATS sleuths and a team from the central department of telecommunication raided an apartment at MS Complex in Mitha Nagar, Kondhwa.

During the raid, police recovered seven SIM boxes containing 3,788 SIM cards of different companies, nine Wi-Fi routers, an antenna, an inverter and a laptop, used to run an illegal telephone exchange at the spot.

During further investigation, ATS arrested Naushad Ahmed Siddiqui (32) of UP, Md Ujjair Shaukat Ali Ansari alias Sonu (29) of Bhiwandi on September 3, and Piyush Subhashrao Gajbhiye (19) of Wardha on September 4.

Judicial magistrate (1st class) SK Dugaonkar has remanded all five accused persons to ATS custody till September 13.

The ATS submitted before the court that the accused Rehan is suspected to have brought Naushad and Ansari alias Sonu from Bhiwandi to Pune and trained them to operate the illegal telephone exchange at Kondhwa. Assistant public prosecutor Bodhini Shashikala told the court that custodial interrogation of the accused was required to confront them with each other to find out how Rehan got information about the illegal telephone exchange and who is the mastermind behind the racket.

3,865 of 6,820 SIM cards seized

Bodhini also told the court that 77 more SIM cards that the accused had dumped near a nullah at Bhandari bridge in Kondhwa were recovered during investigation. The probe also revealed that the accused Pravin provided 6,820 SIM cards to the other accused for the illegal telephone exchange. So far 3,865 SIM cards have been seized. Bodhini also submitted 62 SIM cards with KYC documents from Uttar Pradesh were still under the lens.

ATS submitted that it is investigating why the accused persons rented WhatsApp accounts. To whom these WhatsApp accounts were provided is being investigated. The ATS investigation revealed that the accused Gajbhiye and Rehan allegedly generated OTPs for WhatsApp accounts.

As per ATS, Gajbhiye received about Rs 9 lakh in the last eight months for generating OTPs for the illegal telephone exchange. ATS is investigating the financial transactions between the accused made via banks as well as crypto accounts. Gajbhiye had told the court that he was given Rs 50 per OTP from the other accused. Claiming to be innocent, he said he was pursuing a diploma course in computers at a Hadapsar college.

Loss to telecom service providers

In the last few years, several illegal telephone exchanges were busted across the country. Investigation revealed that routing services were provided to people in certain foreign countries through it.

After a similar action in Chennai, the telecom department stated last year that illegal telecom setups comprising SIM boxes and a SIM-based wireless internet router were used to make international calls as local calls, bypassing the licenced international long-distance operators (ILDO) network. It causes revenue loss to telecom service providers and the government exchequer. An ATS probe is underway to find out the amount of loss caused to the government through the illegal telephone exchange in Kondhwa.