CBI arrests five for international call racket

NEW DELHI - Five people have been arrested for inflicting a loss of crores of rupees on a public sector telecom company by making illegal international calls to friendship chat lines, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said Monday.

The accused, including an non-resident Indian (NRI) based in Saudi Arabia, were operating a racket from Roorkee in Uttarakhand by illegally activating ISD facility on local landline numbers after tampering with computers in a telephone exchange.

The racket inflicted a loss of crores of rupees on the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

According to the CBI, the accused allegedly conspired to tamper computers of a BSNL exchange to make international calls to friendship chat lines.

“During investigation, it was revealed that the accused made calls to three African nations (Congo, Sierra Leone and Somalia) on some premium rate numbers without any ISD facility by tempering with the computers of the exchange,” a CBI official said.

Those arrested during a raid last week include Ashok Chaudhary, sub-divisional engineer of the BSNL, Roorkee, Zia Alam, a native of Faridabad in Haryana, and Abdul Mazid and Subhas Chand, both residents of Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The alleged kingpin of the racket is Sayeed Zaidi, an NRI based in Saudi Arabia, the CBI said.

“International premium rate numbers of Somalia, Cango and Sierra Leone were taken by some persons in Italy and Saudi Arabia and these numbers were passed on by them to the king-pin of this racket for making long calls from India through his Indian contacts,” the official said.

The king-pin was also paid huge money through hawala (money laundering) transactions for carrying out such activities in India, he said.

According to the CBI, searches were conducted at the premises of the accused which led to recovery of incriminating documents and huge details of money transactions.

“Till now, transactions of nearly Rs.1.5 crore by hawala has been established,” the official added.