Unbridled ingenuity can land one in trouble. Four college dropouts learnt the lesson the hard way in the city recently. They were arrested by the City Crime Branch for swindling telecom companies and bypassing the network to allow their “clients” to make international calls at local rates. The CCB sleuths raided the students’ house on the first floor in Cheluvaya garden in Ram Murthy Nagar and arrested Eshwar Chandra Vidyasagar (34) from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, Praveen (27) from Karim Nagar of Andhra Pradesh, Ramarao alias Pillu Venkataraman (51) from West Godavari in Andhra Pradesh and Sapthadari (30) from BTM Layout. The police said the four used to diver international calls at local rates from an online international company, “Speed Flow International Company”, which allows users to make international calls at low rates.
They had purchased Tata Docomo SIM cards in bulk and gave them to customers who wanted to make international calls. The gang had installed the equipment – a GSM gateway-FCT box, the quantum and the modem – to divert the calls through online. The police arrested the accused based on a tip-off.
DCP (Crime) Krishnam Raju “Two out of the four arrested were dealers and distributors of Tata Docomo. The network service provider has an offer where if a person purchases a SIM with Rs. 899 offer, he can use unlimited service without any roaming charges for a month. Taking advantage, the accused had bought SIM cards in bulk and distributed them to people. They were running the business, against TRAI rules, from the rented house from where they were arrested. We recovered SIM cards and other material worth Rs 20 lakh from them.”