Man held for running illegal telephone exchange

A 40-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly running an illegal telephone exchange in Old Delhi's Chawri Bazar area, police said on Monday.

The telephone exchange converted international voice calls into local ones through various software illegally and caused losses to the government, police said.

Since they were not authorized to do so, the entire operation was illegal, senior police said.

The accused has been identified as Imran Khan, they said.

Khan had been running a tools shop for the last 13 years at Chawri Bazar but due to the financial crisis, he had provided that space to his uncle -- Zulfiqar Ali -- who was running the illegal telephone exchange, officials said.The accused also provided high speed wifi connection for the set up run by Ali, who is the main accused and is absconding.

Ali, a resident of Turkman gate in central Delhi, had taken proprietorship for the illegal set up under the title -- Adeeba Enterprises. He also owns an agency of soft drink and is known as Raja in the locality, police said. The matter came to light after police received a complaint from the Department of Telecom (DoT) which stated that it had received inputs that an illegal international telecom setup was being run by Ali at Chawri Bazar, police said.

The police said that calls from foreign countries including USA, UAE, Canada, Nepal and Australia were being converted illegally into local ones.

Residents of the area informed the police that the premises, where the setup was being run, is owned by Ali and also occupied by his relative named Yusuf, he said.

One laptop found connected to the internet on which apps for remote sharing were found installed and running at the spot, he said.

"The accused was bypassing the legal international gateways and causing financial loss to government exchequer, Internal Long Distance licensees, National Long Distance licensees and Access service licensees to the tune of around Rs 60,74,000 per day," police said.

Police suspects that the relatives of accused may be actively involved as well.

The value of recovered items has been estimated to be approximately Rs 1 crore, police said.