They establish illegal exchanges to facilitate international VoIP calls
The accused had set up illegal exchanges or gateways by taking non-CLI traffic from overseas and giving it to various illegal VoIP operators in Hyderabad and India. They maintained dedicated servers in various places in the city including Kukatpally
Hyderabad: The Cyberabad Cyber Crime police has arrested six persons for illegal routing of VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) calls by using local and non-local numbers, establishing illegal exchanges to facilitate international VoIP calls on land and domestic numbers by by-passing the International Long Distance gateways.
“The illegal calls, originating from providers in the Gulf, the UK or the US, are routed through illegal gateway equipment. The data is connected to VoIP gateway switch, which converts it into voice calls. These are disseminated to receivers in India. These calls are routed illegally and cause losses of Rs 35 crore per year to the country,” said S. Rajashekar Reddy, cyber crimes inspector.
The accused are D. Venkata Shiva Prasad, M. Subbamanoj Deepak, K. Kalyan Chakravarthy, R. Durga Srinivas, Naresh Kumar and D. Srinivas Reddy, all residents of Hyderabad. The police seized laptops, routers, SIM cards, antennae and telecommunication and networking equipment worth Rs 40 lakh from them.
accused.
According to Cyber Crime officials, the accused had set up illegal exchanges or gateways by taking non-CLI traffic from overseas and giving it to various illegal VoIP operators in Hyderabad and India. They maintained dedicated servers in various places in the city including Kukatpally, Madhapur and Alwal.
“The illegal calls originating from providers in Middle East, UK or US are routed through illegal gateway equipment. The data is connected to VoIP gateway switch, which converts it into voice calls. These are disseminated to receivers in India. These calls are routed illegally and cause losses of about Rs 35 crore per year to the government of India,” said Mr S. Rajashekar Reddy, Inspector, Cyber Crimes.
Officials said absconders, terror elements and Pakistan intelligence operatives use these type of grey exchanges as their calls can’t be traced. In the recent espionage case and the arrest of Naib Subedar P.K. Poddar and Asif Ali, their handlers from Pakistan used these illegal VoIP exchanges to avoid detection.
Cops seized laptops, routers, SIM cards, antennae and other telecommunication and networking equipment worth Rs 40 lakh from the accused.
Officials said that international calls originating from Pakistan and Middle East countries using illegal networks for cheaper call rates were a threat to national security. Illegal routing of calls also cause huge losses to the exchequer and the accused were making heavy profits.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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