The accused would allegedly communicate illegally across the borders using international gateways/SIM box that has caused losses of Rs 15 crore collectively to the government in the past six months.
The Maharashtra ATS, in a joint operation with Latur police and the Department of Telecommunications, has busted an illegal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone exchange in Latur by arresting two accused. This comes after the ATS received intelligence inputs from a Jammu and Kashmir-based military intelligence unit.
The accused would allegedly communicate illegally across the borders using international gateways/SIM box that has caused losses of Rs 15 crore collectively to the government in the past six months. The ATS suspects that the call centres may have been operated by the Inter-services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani spy agency, to acquire sensitive military information.
The accused have been identified as Shankar Biradar, 33, and Ravi Sabade, 27, who both hail from Latur. According to police, the duo would run two separate exchanges at separate locations in the city, and would allegedly convert VoIP calls from abroad into a voice illegally and would transfer that voice to the beneficiary and call receiver in India through an illegal international gateway.
An ATS source said these kinds of illegal VoIP exchanges were earlier used by an intelligence agency of the neighbouring country to acquire sensitive military information. The ATS is now conducting an investigation to ascertain if the accused were instrumental in providing military information, gathered by them or their accomplice, across the border. The agency also wants to understand with whom the accused had communicated in the past.
"We are trying to crack down on the entire racket. We suspect that the accused are just mediators and someone else may have provided financial and technical assistance to them. Our probe is on. Possible links with the ISI cannot be ruled out," said an ATS officer on the condition of anonymity.
Two separate cases have been registered in two police stations in Latur against the accused. Police has also recovered 96 SIMs, one computer, a CPU and three machines for call transforming worth Rs 4.60 lakh in raids. "We conducted three raids in Latur. The accused started the illegal call exchange by using the international gateways," said Chiranjeev Prasad, Inspector General of Police, Nanded.
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