New Delhi, Oct 1 (IANS): In a major bust, the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police has arrested four persons on charges of illegally terminating foreign calls, including from Pakistan, in India, bypassing the legal international and national gateways of Indian telecom service providers.
The accused persons, identified as Irfan Ali, Zulfikar Ali, Arib Ali and Mohd Irfan, all residents of Delhi, were arrested for setting up illegal international GSM termination exchanges in the Chawri Bazar area.
Calls from the US, the UAE, Canada, Nepal, Australia, Pakistan and many other foreign countries were being terminated illegally to Indian mobile numbers.
"The arrested persons were masterminds of the syndicate and mostly calls were generated from the Gulf countries," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central), Shweta Chauhan, said.
The illegal international GSM termination exchanges were set up using SIP trunk, internet, and server-based technologies. The setups were illegally terminating foreign calls in India, bypassing the legal international and national gateways of Indian telecom service providers.
The Caller Line Identification (CLI) is used to display Indian numbers for internationally landed calls. In this manner, a huge number of calls, around 1,47,000 calls per day and call duration around 14,400 hours per day via CLI number +91-1135035487, and 1,43,000 calls per day and call duration of around 13,000 hours per day via CLI number +91-1135041003, went unregulated, causing massive loss of revenues and compromising the national security of India.
Notably, international calls can only be terminated in India through DoT licensed operators. The accused persons were bypassing the legal international gateways, thus incurring a 'massive financial loss of Rs 103 crores to the government exchequer, ILD licensees, NLD licensees, and access service licensees. The total calls diverted by this setup were 4,87,17,357.
From the network diagram, it was found that the foreign calls were coming via the internet and were being pumped into Indian telephone and mobile numbers with the help of the internet provided at the incoming side.
The police said at the place of the incident, one laptop was found connected through the internet on which apps for remote sharing were found installed and running.
"The accused persons were absconding from the installation site and had switched off their mobile phones which clearly revealed their knowledge of the illegal setup," the officials said.
All the four accused have been arrested under various sections of the Telegraph Act and the Copyright Act. Further investigation is on," the police added.