Hyderabad: A day after busting an illegal TV channel broadcasting racket, the police found that the gang is well-established in at least 15 foreign countries and is working for a US-based consumer technology and services company named Jadoo TV. The gang was illegally operating internationally for the last seven years.
Hyderabad commissioner of police Mahender Reddy said that the gang would shift operations from one metro to another after a short duration to escape authorities. He added that they had amassed crores of rupees by selling set-top boxes and providing TV channels via the internet streaming to different countries.
The kingpin of the racket, Sumit Ahuja, who is the CEO of a US-based company, Pearl Technology, is still absconding. The investigating officials said that Mr Ahuja and the owners of Jadoo TV, Sajid Sohail and Faisal Aftab, are using the latest technology to download Indian channels and transmitting them to foreign countries using internet protocol.
“They have been illegally broadcasting 115 Indian channels to foreign countries like USA, Australia and Singapore. They sell their specially-designed set-top boxes for $250 to $300. So far, they have sold more than two lakh boxes,” said Mr Reddy.
The four arrested people were employed by Mr Ahuja in Hyderabad. They are, Mir Kashif Ali Khan, a 27-year-old software engineer, Jagadishwara Chari, the channel monitor, N. Sai Kumar, the telecaller and J.B. Meghanathan, the web designer.
“The racket was based in Bangalore earlier. They shifted to Hyderabad and were operating in a building at Trimulgherry. They had DTH dishes installed along with cable network to receive the channels. They download the channels into storage devices and convert them into internet signals and stream it. Anyone who bought the set top box in other countries can access to these channels,” commissioner Mr. Mahender Reddy said.
