Police to widen net in parallel telephone exchange case

Possible use of illegal network by gold smugglers, extremists under investigation

The District Crime Branch squad investigating the parallel telephone exchange case will seek the support of the Bengaluru police also for netting some of the inter-State operators in the illegal business. According to Crime Branch sources, there have been similar illegal telephone exchanges in Bengaluru city as well, which had been exposed by the local police. In the first round of search carried out in different parts of Kozhikode city, the police had exposed eight parallel exchanges which transferred illegal internet calls from abroad to local phones. The call diversion violating the Telecom rules was facilitated using China-made call routers and hundreds of illegally obtained SIM cards. Police officials, who were part of the first round of investigations in the first week of July, said there were around 700 SIM cards with the illegal exchange operators in Kozhikode district. In the verification process, it was found that all those SIM cards were obtained from States like Assam, West Bengal, and Karnataka. The cards were obtained using fake identity cards and misusing the local connections of some of the shareholders in the business.