CCB unearths illegal telephone exchange racket being operated from data centre in Whitefield

A mobile service provider led the Central Crime Branch officials to unearth another illegal international telephone exchange racket being operated from a data centre in Whitefield.

Based on a complaint by the Department of Telecom and Vodafone, a team of officials raided Iron Mountain data centre in Whitefield and seized six SIM boxes, 133 SIM cards, 12 data storage servers, an Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange (IPBX), a network router, and other equipment worth ₹10 lakh.

The police arrested Tufail Ahmed, 35, a BE graduate from Tamil Nadu, allegedly operating the centre, while his two associates were overseeing the operations from Dubai.

Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh said that the accused converted international calls to local ones, and thus cheated service providers and telecallers. The police during the probe also found that the service was being used for cybercrimes, which is now part of the investigation.

The accused had rented space to run the illegal exchange.

This is the third case of an illegal telephone exchange racket operated from the city that was unearthed in the last one month.

The racket came to light based on the alert received by Vodafone from the Department of Telecommunications regarding a suspected illegal SIM box operation allegedly being used to facilitate cyber financial fraud. The activity was traced to the Whitefield area, specifically within the IT Park (ITPL).

The DoT also said that 107 mobile numbers issued by Vodafone-Idea Limited are suspected to be used in SIM box devices, in violation of telecom regulations.

The service provider found that all 107 SIM cards were issued to a company named Gleam Global Services India Private Limited. Technical analysis indicated that these SIM cards were misused in SIM box devices to route unauthorised or fraudulent calls, which constituted a serious breach under the Telecommunications Act, 2023.

The CCB officials, who had arrested Tufail in a similar case, took him into police custody for seven days and a detailed questioning led him to confess to the crime.

The CCB officials gathered details of his associates in Dubai and efforts are on to secure them. With this, the CCB officials managed to disconnect at least three networks of illegal telephone exchange rackets and they suspect that there are more.