A resident of Kozhikode was arrested for conducting a parallel “telephone exchange” under the cover of a cafe; a resident of Kozhikode was arrested for “doing a phone exchange” under the cover of a cafe

Bangalore: He sells tea during the day and operates an illegal telephone exchange that sets him up at night. A resident of Kozhikode in Bangalore was arrested for diverting international phone calls into local calls and delivering them to call centers for a fixed amount.

Ashraf (33), a resident of Kozhikode, was arrested by the Central Crime Branch in Bangalore. Police also confiscated a device they had installed at his residence to change calls. Ashraf started the program alone after learning how to illegally translate international phone calls into local calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Ashraf was illegally managing the country’s telecommunications service providers on a large scale. As a result, telecom service providers incurred huge losses. There are many call centers in Bangalore for foreign companies. Most of their customer service calls come from abroad.

Such calls must be paid by the caller or the call center. Instead of paying telecom service providers, Ashraf’s illegal phone exchange would turn international calls into local bulls. More than 100 Indian SIM cards have been used for this. In the past three days alone, more than 560 calls were recorded on the VoIP device.

Ashraf is charged 6 rupees per minute to convert international bulls into domestic bulls. The SIM cards were taken from Kerala and other states. Ashraf said more people were involved in the gang. Police said Ashraf, who ran a coffee shop during the day, was involved in changing phone calls at night, and investigations were still ongoing.