In a major crackdown on illegal telecommunications activities, Noida police arrested two individuals for allegedly running an illegal international telephone exchange. The suspects, identified as Shivam Kumar, the manager, and Devki Nandan, the director of the firm, were arrested after a raid at a private firm in Sector 63, Noida, which was found to be operating the unlicensed setup.
According to Avdhesh Pratap Singh, the Station House Officer of Sector 63 Police Station, the arrests were made following a complaint from Ramesh Kumar Yadav, an SDA (Software Defined Access) engineer at an Indian telecommunication provider. The complaint alerted the police to the operation, leading to a joint raid by officials from the Department of Telecommunications and the Noida Police.
During the raid, authorities discovered illegal equipment, including one session border controller (SBC), two CPUs, three internet routers, and session initiation protocols (SIP) linked to two different telecommunication companies. These were used to form an unauthorized telephone exchange, bypassing legitimate Indian telecom providers and causing significant financial losses.
The private firm was using the illegal setup to save international call charges that would otherwise be paid to licensed telecom service providers. This operation involved approximately 1,200 telephone numbers and primarily targeted international destinations such as Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The setup, however, lacked a valid license, violating the Indian Telegraph Act and raising serious concerns about national security as calls made through this unauthorized exchange could not be traced by law enforcement agencies.
The FIR stated, “The company was running this illegal exchange to bypass legal international long-distance (ILD) gateways, which created a grey market in the telecom sector. These illegal activities jeopardized national security and caused substantial losses to both telecom providers and the government.”
Police officers are currently working to identify the individuals or organizations using the unauthorized services provided by the firm, and investigations are ongoing to determine the full scale of the operation.
