Illegal telephone exchange busted in Mathura, 3 held

With the arrest of three persons including an engineer, the UP police today claimed to have busted an illegal telephone exchange being run here.
"A mini telephone exchange of BSNL was being run in Chawala complex, Maheshwari Nagar in Govind Nagar on GT road," said SSP Swapnil Mamgai.
"Large amount of accessories and equipment was recovered from racket members Nishant Sharma, Anil Bansal and Dhruv Singh who were arrested on a tip off," he said while talking to reporters here.
Kingpin Nishant, a software engineer, has disclosed how he used to obtain SIM cards on fake IDs from one Asad Khan of Lucknow.

According to Mamgai, Nishant had established contact with 'Kunsi Network Company China' on internet for providing cheap international call facility (ISD). He said the racket also started providing the facility to foreigners through an improvised device later.
"Had the racket not been busted, the telephone exchange could have become internal security threat to the country," he said while not ruling out the involvement of more persons in the racket.

A total of 33 Reliance SIM cards and 47 BSNL SIM cards have been recovered from their possession along with international gateway machines and other equipment, he said.
"Police had recieved a complaint regarding sudden increase of load in Maheshwari Nagar based BSNL tower from the telecom authorities sometimes back," Mamgai said.

Though SWAT and surveillance teams were entrusted with the task, later the help of Army Intelligence and ATF was also sought, he added.