The Kerala police Crime Branch had nabbed a Kadampuzha native named Ibrahim Pullatile in connection to the sale of call routes to handlers in the neighbouring countries of China, Bangladesh and Pakistan, reported The New Indian Express (TNIE). Call routing is used by criminals to avoid detection of the origin of calls by telecom operators.
Ibrahim had confessed to his involvement in the parallel telephone exchange case during which he remained in contact with 168 nationals from Pakistan. This was revealed during the probe of his Skype files and chats. The accused had received 20 lacs worth of Hawala money from Muhammaed Raheem, a Pakistani national, and ₹15 lacs from Bangladeshi national Sahir.
Although Pakistani Inter-State Intelligence (ISI) uses Gulf-registered phone numbers for carrying out Hawala activities, this was not the case with Raheem. The Research and Analysis Wing (RA&W) officials are now probing the money trail and activities of the Pakistani handler.
Ibrahim was also found bargaining with Pakistani nationals over the sale of the illegal call routes. The other accused in the case has been identified as Abdul Gafoor. TNIE reported that Ibrahim used Chinese-origin soft switch, similar to DINSTAR (leading Chinese VoIP gateway provider), for running parallel telephone exchange in India. The accused was also in touch with 2 Chinese women named Lee and Fly.
A report filed by Assistant Commissioner TP Sreejith stated, “It is explicitly evident that the intention and motive of the culprits were not a mere case of bypassing a phone call or cheating a service provider. It is a clear threat to our nation’s internal security.”
The menace of parallel telephone exchanges surfaced during the investigation in the gold smuggling case in Kerala. Besides, phone numbers associated with many POCSO cases were found linked to such exchanges. Other such cases reported from Mumbai, Patna, Bengaluru and Meerut were found to use identical devices. Reportedly, such parallel telephone exchanges were intercepted near the Bombay Stock Exchange and used for money laundering purposes.
