Ripe. Used an illegal telephone exchange to obtain intelligence

(PTI) New Delhi, Dt

An investigation by a Pakistani spy agency into a phone call to a military base in eastern India has revealed that an illegal telephone exchange was operating from Bengaluru. This has led to the question of whether there are illegal telephone exchanges in other parts of the country. The illegal exchange was seized by the military intelligence wing of the army's southern command. The call to the military establishment was intercepted by a military agency. During the call, a Pakistani spy pretended to be a senior official and inquired about some general information.

The revelation came after the Bengaluru-based anti-terrorist squad, with the help of Southern Command's military intelligence agency, arrested two people running an illegal exchange. Six SIM box devices were seized from them, which can use 20 SIM cards at a time. Ibrahim Mulatti bin Mohammad Kutty, a resident of Malappuram, Kerala and Gautam B., a resident of Tirupur, Tamil Nadu. Vishwanath had installed 21 devices in six areas of the city for his illegal activities.

The intelligence agency conducted further investigations into the phone call to a military base in eastern India. He said that such phone calls were also made to various units such as the Movement Control Office as well as the Principal Controller of Defense Accounts and other offices. The entire scandal was uncovered after a thorough investigation, in which people from a Pakistan-based spy agency were calling through this illegal exchange to contact Indian citizens and get information from military agencies.

Officials said that the employees of the Pakistani spy agency had resorted to investing in illegal call exchanges, which turned Internet calls (VoIP) into ordinary Indian mobile calls. The SIM box is used for this illegal operation, which works to run a parallel illegal telephone exchange.

The Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) box, also known as SIM Bank, is a hardware-based device and is used to eliminate the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) telecom directly in the telecom sector, officials said.

An operator uses a technique called 'migration' of a SIM card, in which the SIM card is registered on a separate GSM module with a specific frequency and several GSM gateways located in the city are created and this system creates confusion about the actual movement of the customer. Doing so helps the operator to get the SIM card blocked by the service provider and to confuse government agencies.