Gang held for causing Rs 1-cr loss to MTNL

Gang held for causing Rs 1-cr loss to MTNL
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI, JULY 3: A gang of alleged cheats, which caused a loss of about Rs one crore to the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), was arrested by the special staff of the South Delhi district police, last evening.

The gang was utilising the conferencing facility to route international calls through India without paying the tariff to the MTNL. The police have arrested three persons Kimti Lal Sharma (48), Shahazad Nabi Siddiqui (25) and Mohd Yasin (24) in this connection. The three were arrested from their base in Krishna Nagar, Safdarjung Enclave.

According to the police, the gang was working in collusion with the MTNL employees. However, no employee of the MTNL has been arrested.

According to Inspector Rajinder Singh, who led the special staff team, the gang had acquired at least six International Subscribers Dialling (ISD) lines in collusion with the MTNL employees by giving false names and addresses. Once they got the ISD connections, they passed on the numbers to their call agents in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. One of them, based in Saudi Arabia, has been identified as Furkan.

The client approaching these call agents would give his own number (in Saudi Arabia) and the destination number, mostly in some foreign country, explained Inspector Singh.

The agent would then call up the gang members in India, who would connect the client to the destination number through the conferencing facility, added the inspector. The gang had fixed a flat rate for the users Rs 200 for ten minutes a rate much too less for an international call, the inspector said.The gang is believed to have made at least Rs one crore through this operation. The payment to this was made through hawala transaction, the inspector said.