Pune illegal telephone exchange: ATS probes financial transactions of accused who got Rs 9 lakh for sharing OTPs, activating SIM cards

On August 24, the ATS sleuths, along with a team from the central Department of Telecommunication, raided an illegal telephone exchange at the MS Complex of Mitha Nagar in Kondhwa.

The ATS had seized seven SIM boxes which contained SIM cards of different companies, 3,788 SIM cards, nine Wi-Fi routers, an antenna, an inverter and a laptop during the raid.

Subsequently, during the probe, the Thane ATS arrested Naushad Ahmed Siddiqui, 32, of Bhiwandi, from Rajasthan. He was later handed over to the Pune unit of the ATS.

During further investigation, Sonu was arrested on Tuesday night and Gajbhiye in the early hours of Wednesday.

The ATS produced all three accused before S K Dugaonkar, Judicial Magistrate First Class, on Wednesday. The court remanded the accused to ATS custody till September 6 for further investigation. Meanwhile, the investigators have named one more suspect as a wanted accused in this case.

Assistant public prosecutor Bodhini Shashikala said that custody of the accused persons was sought to probe whether they have provided routing services to people from any foreign countries.

‘Accused involved in supporting anti-national activities?’

The ATS has sent the seized SIM cards, SIM boxes and routers for forensic investigation. It is also probing the mobile phone calls made by the accused and the internet service they used to run the illegal telephone exchange.

Shashikala submitted before the court that custodial interrogation of the accused is necessary to know from where the accused procured the SIM cards, got the Internet connection and details about the other seized material.

“To whom the accused shared the OTPs generated for the illegal telephone exchange, where the phone calls were directed, whether the accused were involved in supporting any anti national activities, and the quantum of loss caused to the government through the illegal telecom set up are also being probed,” she said.

The ATS probe has revealed that all the three accused have previously worked together in Bhiwandi. It also suspects that the accused were allegedly operating the illegal telephone exchange at Kondhwa for the last eight months.

Two school dropouts and a diploma holder

The prosecution said Gajbhiye is suspected to have received an amount of about Rs 9 lakh for performing tasks like sharing OTPs and activating SIM cards. Gajbhiye has done a diploma in a course related to computers, while the other two accused are school dropouts, said ATS sources.

Prima facie, the ATS investigation has revealed that Siddiqui and his associates were operating the unauthorised telephone exchange for money.

Over the past few years, various police agencies and the telecom department have busted multiple illegal telephone exchanges and SIM box scams in different parts of the country.

On July 31, 2024, the ATS had busted another unauthorised telephone exchange in the Bhiwandi area. During the action, the ATS seized nine SIM boxes, 246 SIM cards, eight routers, 191 antennas, and an inverter. The Thane unit of the ATS had arrested Jafar Babu Usman Patel, 40, in the case.

After a similar action in Chennai, the telecom department stated last year that illegal telecom setups consisting of SIM boxes and a SIM-based wireless internet router are used to make international calls as local calls, bypassing the licensed international long-distance operators (ILDO) network.

“The SIM box fraud is a setup where fraudsters team up with partners abroad to route international calls through the internet using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). These international calls will appear as calls with local/national CLI. Such illegal telecom setups pose threats to national security in addition to causing revenue loss to the telecom service providers (ILDO, NLDO, mobile and landline phone service providers) and Government exchequer,” reads a 2023 media release from the Press Information Bureau.

(With PTI inputs)