A team of officials/officers from Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Tamil Nadu LSA, BSNL Chennai Telephones, Airtel TN and Tamil Nadu Police jointly raided the suspected Locations in Triplicate, Royapettah and T Nagar areas of Chennai city and busted three illegal telecom set ups.

It has been found that illegal telecom set ups, consisting of Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) boxes and wireless internet routers were used to terminate international calls as local calls bypassing the licensed International Long- Distance (ILD) gateways.

The SIM box fraud, is a setup where fraudsters team up with partners abroad to route international calls through the internet using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). These international calls will appear as local calls with local/national CLI. Such illegal telecom setups pose threat to national security in addition to causing revenue loss to the Telecom Service Providers (ILDO, NLDO, landline and mobile service operators) and Government exchequer.

Illegal telephone setups at three locations in Chennai city were busted on 12.01.2023 (Thursday). The equipment and setups were seized by the CCB TN police Chennai. The setup consisted of the following:

* No of SIM Boxes 15

*  No of Airtel and BSNL SIMs used: 1000 (approx.)

*  Wireless Router with SIM for internet: 12

* Stray SIM cards and other accessories were also seized.

* Airtel TN has filed FIR against the accused who performed the unlawful activities.

     DoT has notified a toll free number "1800 110 420 / 1963" on which the public can inform DoT Call Centre about receipt of an international call with local/national CLI(Caller Line Identification) or without CLI (no number displayed on their phone), according to a press release issued by M.VENALAH, ITS., Director (Admin) O/o Advisor TN LSA DOT, Chennai-8

 

  

 

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