West Bengal: 1 arrested for running illegal telephone exchange in Siliguri

Siliguri (West Bengal) [India], May 16 : The new Jalpaiguri Police of Siliguri Metropolitan Police (SMP) on Thursday busted an illegal SIM box network operation, leading to the arrest of the alleged kingpin for allegedly running illegal telephone exchanges by using SIM box machines, causing loss of revenue to the Department of Telecom, an official said.
The team seized three sim boxes, also called sim banks, with huge slots, 93 sim cards, technical gadgets, fake voter cards, Addhar cards, licences and other documents.
The arrested accused has been identified as Md Sabbir, 28 years old, a resident of Kuyarbari, very close to the Indo-Bangladesh border.
According to the police officials, based on source information, a special team of SOG (Special Operation Group) and the Directive Department (DD) headed by Debasish Bose, ACP, Siliguri Metropolitan police raided a mobile repair shop of Md Sabbir at Jatiakhali in Jalpaiguri, adjacent to the Indo-Bangladesh International border. It recovered three SIM boxes, 93 SIM cards and many more articles, including some fake documents.
The central agencies' officers have commenced the investigation. They have also arrived at the police station to probe the accused person.
A SIM box (also called a SIM bank) is a device used as part of a VoIP gateway installation. It contains several SIM cards, linked to the gateway but housed and stored separately from it. A SIM box can have SIM cards from different mobile operators installed, permitting it to operate with several GSM gateways located in various places.