Navi Mumbai Police Hunt Two Women for Illegally Rerouting International Calls, Harming DoT and Security

In a major crackdown on illegal call rerouting, Navi Mumbai police are searching for two women accused of diverting international calls to Indian numbers, causing significant financial losses to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and potentially jeopardizing national security. A case has been registered against them at the Cyber Cell police station.

Following the Department of Telecommunications' (DoT) observation, a complaint was lodged with the police regarding the rerouting of international telecom voice traffic to Indian local numbers through software manipulation. An official from the Cyber Cell police station disclosed that the DoT reported several instances in Maharashtra, Punjab, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, where residents received calls from relatives abroad without the displayed country code. Instead, the calls exhibited local Maharashtra numbers with city codes, prompting the initiation of an investigation.

Upon conducting an investigation, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) discovered that two call centers, M/s Jas Technology Pvt Ltd and M/s Savitarka Business Solution Pvt Ltd, had procured a SIP Trunk Line for call center operations and were utilizing it for activities associated with the Grey Market. The operational offices of these companies were traced to the MIDC TTC Industrial area in Rabale. The proprietors identified in connection with these operations are Sushmita Rajkumar and N Sudha Rao.

M/s Jas Technology Pvt. Ltd secured 1260 connections, while M/s Savitarka Business Solution obtained 600 connections. These connections were exploited to reroute international calls to Indian numbers. Notably, the companies submitted different address proofs to acquire these connections from a private service provider. However, when officials from DoT visited the Rabale MIDC office, no operational call center was found at the reported location. This raises concerns about the authenticity of the information provided by the companies during the connection acquisition process.

The minute technical analysis revealed that both companies were routing international calls to Indian numbers. The call centre was involved in international illegal VoIP call routing.

Following a complaint from DoT, initially a case was registered at Rabale MIDC police station under sections 420, 468, 471 and 34 of IPC, sections 4, 20, 21 and 25 of the Indian Telegraph Act and sections 3 and 6 of the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act 1933 and later transferred to Cyber Cell police.