Kolkata, February 15 – Acting on information received from confidential sources, the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate of West Bengal has busted an illegal SIM box racket and arrested a person in connection with the case, police said on Sunday.
Officers from the Commissionerate's Intelligence Department raided flat number 5B on the fifth floor of a residential building in Hatiara, near Kolkata, on Saturday, and uncovered the operation.
The items recovered during the search include: 9 SIM box machines, more than 2,500 active SIM cards, multiple keypad mobile and Android devices, networking equipment used for VoIP routing and GSM termination, routers, cables, power units, and other accessories.
According to police sources, although the flat appeared to be for ordinary residents, sophisticated telecom operations were being conducted illegally inside.
According to intelligence sources, international calls were being illegally connected to India from this flat. Using the sophisticated SIM box device, VoIP calls coming from abroad were being converted into local or domestic calls and directly sent to the Indian network. This completely bypassed the illegal international gateway exchange and telecom regulatory system. As a result, the government was facing a significant revenue loss, according to police sources.
During the raid, the police apprehended Abir Sheikh alias Monirul Islam Sajib, one of the gang members, inside the flat. Investigators claim that the accused was operating multiple SIM box devices. During the initial interrogation, he confessed to being involved in the racket.
The initial assessment of the police is that this network may be linked to a larger interstate or international network. The source of financial transactions, the method of collecting SIM cards, and the involvement of other individuals are being investigated.
Bidhannagar Commissionerate officials are interrogating the accused in custody to gather more information about the network. An official from the Intelligence Department of the Bidhannagar Commissionerate said: "Such illegal SIM box operations can not only cause a loss to telecom revenue but also pose a major threat to national security. A thorough investigation is underway to identify those involved."
