From Cambodia’s cyber dens to a village in Bihar’s Bhojpur: The 20,000 calls that told a story

“A preliminary assessment suggests revenue losses of up to Rs 50 crore to the Department of Telecommunications alone due to the SIM operation, not including the proceeds earned by cyber fraudsters using the services provided by Mukesh,” says DIG, Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police, Manavjit Singh Dhillon.

On January 9, the CBI registered an FIR taking over the investigation.

It was the unnatural number of calls originating from the Narayanpur region, in which Bhaluni is located, that first raised suspicions – 20,000-odd calls between July 5 and 7, 2025, for one. The 2011 Census put the entire region’s population at 2,125.

On July 10, 2025, the EOU received a formal communication from the Telecom Department office in Patna, saying its Digital Intelligence Unit had noticed suspicious activity originating from Narayanpur region in Bhojpur district. An analysis of tower dump data, IMEIs and calling patterns suggested an illegal SIM-box setup, allowing multiple SIM cards to be used simultaneously.

Officials suspected the box was being used to route international Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls through Indian mobile networks, masking their true origin.

Another detail piqued their interest. In June 2024, the Telangana Police had also identified Narayanpur as a location potentially linked to illegal VoIP routing.

Apart from the Narayanpur tip-off, the Telecom Department shared with the Bihar Police a list of 67 suspect mobile numbers. “The calls from these numbers went to recipients across different parts of the country,” says DIG Dhillon.

All the 67 numbers were found to have been activated from just two points of sale in West Bengal’s Malda district, nearly 500 km away – “suggesting organised and coordinated procurement, rather than individual use”, say officials.

The operation was as follows, as per Dhillon: “Certain Common Service Centre operators conducted village-level camps under the pretext of enrolling people in government welfare schemes and collected their biometric data. This data was then used, in collusion with registered distributors and retailers of telecom service providers, to obtain a large number of SIM cards. These cards were subsequently routed through the SIM boxes and used for cyber fraud.”

Having joined the basic dots of the Narayanpur operation, the EOU constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under DSP Pankaj Kumar to investigate on the ground.

On July 29, the SIT team travelled from Patna to Narayanpur, and then Bhaluni. Says the DIG: “SIM boxes require uninterrupted 24×7 power backup, but continuous electricity supply is uncommon in the area. Based on power consumption patterns and further local inputs, we zeroed in on Bhaluni and Mukesh’s house.”

Accompanied by local police personnel, armed officers, and a representative of the Telecom Department, they knocked on the blue-door house. Mukesh was not at home, but his wife Suman Devi was.

EOU officials say that if the house looked far from the nucleus of an operation with global links, the wanted SIM-boxes were equally underwhelming – four black rectangular boxes placed on a cement ledge. And still running.

Suman reportedly told the officers Mukesh had been operating the boxes for two years, and that she knew little.

EOU officers seized “two 32-slot SIM boxes and two 256-slot SIM boxes, along with 186 SIM cards belonging to multiple telecom operators (BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, Jio)”. Also recovered reportedly were routers, biometric devices, mobile phones, a laptop, bank cards, identity documents and Rs 81,000 in cash.

“All the items were identified by Mukesh’s wife as belonging to and used by him,” says an EOU officer.

The scale

The cyber unit of the Bihar Police is investigating seizures of SIM-box devices from two other places, while a Supaul case busted last year has also been transferred to the CBI along with Narayanpur’s.

DIG Dhillon says the probe indicates these were all distinct operations, but “part of the same network being orchestrated from Southeast Asia”. And that there may be others in operation in Bihar and across the country.

“The orchestrators from foreign countries lure young people online. They even do background checks and conduct virtual interviews, targeting people with no criminal history who are eager to make easy money. Each SIM-box keeper is kept unaware of the others so that if one is caught, the entire operation is not compromised,” Dhillon says.

As per officials, the Supaul operation involved more than 10,000 calls a day being generated from 50 mobile numbers in village Gosspur. Investigators zeroed in on 231 suspicious numbers, with SIM cards activated from a handful of points of sale in Bihar.

Given Supaul’s proximity to the Nepal border, national security was a significant concern in the case. Another concern apparently was evidence of cryptocurrency transactions linked to the operation. Cyber cases from across the country are now being probed for links to Gosspur.

Bhaluni village

In Bhaluni, almost everyone knows Mukesh, and almost no one wants to talk about what went on inside the blue-door house. Neighbours, refusing to identify themselves, say Mukesh surrendered on his own the day after the EOU raid.

Two months later, in September 2025, he approached the district court seeking bail, claiming he had been falsely implicated. The court rejected the plea, citing the scale of recoveries and the seriousness of the allegations. In November, Mukesh moved the Patna High Court, arguing that he was not directly involved in cyber fraud and had no role in the larger syndicate. Mukesh’s counsel told the court that nothing had been recovered from his possession and even if it had been, “there is no allegation that he has cheated anyone by the said recovered devices”.

On December 3, the High Court noted that “the nature of allegation… is general and omnibus”, and ordered Mukesh’s release on bail.

At Bhaluni village, Mukesh’s home is locked, with neighbours claiming they have no idea where he and his family are. They also claim they remain puzzled as to how the father of four found himself caught up in an operation that is beyond their comprehension and – they insist – beyond his.

A landless farmer in his 30s, Mukesh has spent his entire life in the village, says Hardev Singh, a retired Army personnel who lives nearby. “He has never gone outside Bihar.”

Mukesh’s father too served in the Army, in the Bihar Regiment, and died in 2012. His mother passed away in 2023.

A relative claims the SIM-box equipment was given to Mukesh by someone else. “He told us the person brought the machine and asked him to keep it. He did not fully understand what it was being used for.”

Villagers say the police action of July 2025 took them all by surprise. “We had never seen anything like the devices before,” a neighbour who claims to have been present then says.

Another villager suggests Mukesh may have been “influenced” by others. “There is very little employment here. People are easily tempted by promises of easy money,” he says, pointing to the difficulties Mukesh faced providing for his family, with no farming land in his name.

On the cash seized from his home, some relatives claim he had borrowed the same from local lenders for the farming season.

As per police though, all the technical evidence points to a structured operation rather than a man who did not know what he was doing. They also remain sceptical of the unplastered appearance of Mukesh’s home, claiming he may have earned lakhs as “commission”.

Intertwined with talk of what happened with Mukesh are references to lack of job options in the village, which now has access to a government middle and high school and a primary health centre. Mukesh studied till Class 12, and his children attend the government middle school.

A youth who would not identify himself said he is enrolled at a college in Ara, nearly 30 km away. “Anyone who wants to graduate has to go there. There’s nothing here.”

Another student, Dipu Kumar, 18, says he has started preparing for railway recruitment exams alongside graduation. “Online coaching has helped.”

Hardev Singh, the retired Army personnel, suggests Mukesh’s story is not unique. “The biggest problem here is lack of work. When there are no jobs, people fall into the trap of shortcuts and easy money.”

Meanwhile, say villagers, Mukesh has stopped keeping even a personal phone.