According to the DoT officials, estimated total revenue loss to the national exchequer by this illegal activity called the “sim box fraud” is worth $75,60,000.

Cops along with officials from Department of Telecommunications conducted a raid in Cheetah Camp area of Trombay, Mumbai on and found the first exchange being run by two persons.

“70 SIM cards, one router, 3 machines for call transforming (illegal international gateways) were seized in this raid. This seized property is said to be costing about Rs 4,55,000,” a senior cop said.

The accused were running this Illegal Telephone exchange for more than 4 months.

The team seized 44 SIM boxes, 182 SIM cards, routers, antennas, connecting cables, servers used to divert calls and other equipments, Samsung S 7 Mobile, DG bank visa card, ICICI debit card, state bank credit card, licence, Aadhar card, Pan Card, Cash Rs 11,060, ICICI Platinum card, Pan card, Driving licence, Aadhar card, CEN news press card, Samsung galaxy mobile.

Accordingly an offence was registered at Trombay police station.

During interogation, it was revealed that the accused were allegedly working for a company Dial to India, which processed internet calls originating from the gulf countries and converted them into normal phone calls.

According to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), these illegal operations led to loss of Rs 49 crore to the Indian government.

It was learnt that these Illegal VoIP exchanges were cracked in continuation of unearthing of similar exchanges at Latur and Telangana by Maharashtra ATS on specific input of J&K based Military Intelligence Unit on June 12, qe and 16 June respectively.

Investigations conducted by the ATS and the crime branch revealed that the accused used latest SIM pooler technology and the machines were procured from China under the pretext of importing amplifiers.

These machines were placed in the residences of locals in the slum pockets to hoodwink detection.

The machines were made in China, few of the servers were placed in Govandi/ Trombay and others were installed in the United Kingdom.

Calls predominantly came from Gulf countries, where the virtual calling SIM cards are sold openly. The callers would deposit money online into banks in Hong Kong.

The arrested accused have been identified as Shams Shaikh (34), a Mankhurd residence, Shahid Jamal (36), a resident of Cheetah Camp area of Trombay and Noor Mohammad Shaikh (35),from Chittah camp,Trombay, Mumbai. The owner of the room and one Nassir Hussain (30), a technician have been sent to Police custody till Aug 9.

The main accused in the case, Nazim Shaikh (27) went to China to take training for setting up an illegal telephone exchange in Mumbai.

He runs a cable internet service business, and he duped the slum dwellers into keeping the SIM boxes at their residence in lieu of payment of electricity bills and rent. The residents were told that these were cable internet machines.