Hyderabad: The Falaknuma Police, South Zone Task Force and Security Wing of the Department of Telecommunication, have unearthed an international call racket and arrested two persons who were converting international calls to local calls illegally, causing losses to the exchequer, to the Government of India, and being a national security threat.
SHO Falaknuma police station K. Srinivasa Rao said that based on the complaint of Ashish Chugh, security in-charge of the DoT, the police arrested two persons Amjad Khan and Yousuf Haasan with the help of the Task Force South Zone.
He said that Amjad Khan procured the Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) devices from China and bought pre-activated Airtel SIM cards from Yousuf Haasan and installed the telecom set up with internet connection at Jahanuma in his rented flat, and another in a penthouse located at Ali Bagh, Kalapathar.
He started receiving international calls mostly from people in the US, UK and Saudi Arabia who wanted to call their relatives and friends in India.
Amjad Khan, with the use of VoIP devices, re-routed the calls, avoiding the telecom department. He used to charge Rs 4-5 per minute while it costs Rs 5 per second if they called using a genuine service provider.
Amjad Khan has been running this illegal operation for six years and earned approximately Rs 1.44 crore, which was the amount lost by the government of India.
After making a scientific and technical analysis of international calls, the security wing of the telecom department lodged a complaint with the police.
The police swung into action and identified Yousuf, who had bought a number of SIM cards which were being used from one location. Yousuf was arrested and confessed. Subsequently, the main accused, Amjad Khan, was arrested and the police recovered eight VoIP devices having capacity of 30 SIMs each, 144 SIM cards, one laptop, three cell phones and one Honda City car from his possession.
