Trio diverts intl calls using over 100 sim cards, arrested in Chennai

CHENNAI: City police on Wednesday detained three persons – two from Vellore and one from North India- for renting two houses in Aminjikarai, where they had installed four SIM boxes used to fraudulently divert international calls to cell phones through internet.

Chennai police received a complaint from BSNL after which a team from Chennai police, BSNL and Department of Telecommunications (DOT) conducted searches at two houses in MM Colony and Ponnuvel Pillai Garden and found SIM boxes being used there. Police also seized 120 sim cards and two internet routers.

A SIM box routes international calls back into the network as local calls, using hundreds of low-cost or even unpaid SIM cards, which are often obtained with forged identities, according to reports, thereby benefiting from exploiting the difference between local and international charges by paying just local rates to cell carriers after billing international rates from the source. The caller pays the high call rates, but the local telecom operator does not get the revenue.

Aminjikarai police have detained three persons and are investigating.