Illegal International Racket Using Unauthorised Gateways To Divert The VOIP Calls Landing In India Busted

Telecom related issues faced many challenges in the past. However, the regulatory environment for telecom sector of India is fast changing now.  Telecom security policy of India is also in pipeline that may streamline many telecom related issues in India.  The Telecom Commission has also approved satellite based mobile services in India. Satellite phones may also be allowed to be used by adventure tourists where no telecommunication connectivity is available in India.

Few areas in the field of telecom sector are still problematic in nature. For instance, Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) has always been a problematic aspect in India. Intelligence agencies of India have been insisting that Internet Telephony and VOIP service providers must establish servers in India. Further, Intelligence Bureau (IB) of India is also expediting the testing of VOIP interception system in India.

Meanwhile, crackdowns on illegal VOIP activities continue in India. In one such latest crackdown, the cyber crime wing of Cyberabad police arrested six persons on the charge of running an illegal international racket by setting up unauthorised gateways to divert the VOIP calls landing in India. The accused were using illegal VOIP gateways and diverted the international calls originating from cheap network providers in Pakistan, Middle East, US and UK.

According to the Police, those who receive such calls will have to pay lesser charges as against what the actual provider charges and will also not come under the government scanner.

The international VOIP grey traffic is purchased as per the daily prevailing rates from international carriers. The modus operandi used by illegal grey operators includes arranging international traffic from various VoIP operators across the globe and terminating it on their own illegal VoIP gateways using broadband connections. This traffic is then distributed to the domestic destination numbers using GSM SIMs, CDMA RUIMs and Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) connections.