The Bengaluru police have arrested two men for operating six illegal telephone exchanges in the city, where they would allegedly convert international calls for their customers into local calls and charge them a fraction of what they would need to pay for making them legally.
The two have been identified as Ibrahim Pullatti, 36, from KeralaтАЩs Malappuram, and V Gautam, 27, who is from Tamil NaduтАЩs Tirupur. They were arrested on Monday based on the inputs from military intelligence.
A police officer said they have seized over 900 subscriber identification module (SIM) cards and a device, which could operate 32 of them at a time, from the two. тАЬThey were converting international calls into local calls, bypassing the authorised routers. This not only caused a loss to telecom companies, but it was also a threat to the national security,тАЭ said joint police commissioner Sandeep Patil.
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Six SIM boxes the two allegedly installed at separate locations have been seized. An investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the customers included small firms and individuals, who would make international calls daily as part of their business. тАЬThe accused charged тВ╣1 per pulse rate against тВ╣10 legal charges. They would make anywhere between тВ╣10-15 lakh monthly…тАЭ
A second officer said the ArmyтАЩs eastern command first flagged the matter. It was passed on to the southern command to investigate whether there was an attempt to target the ArmyтАЩs telephone exchanges.
Police did not comment on the ArmyтАЩs internal investigation.
The illegal exchanges were traced to BengaluruтАЩs BTM Layout after the matter was investigated.
Police were also probing money laundering charges against Pullatti.
