‘Magic jack’ enabled accused to make unlimited calls to US

Udaipur police, investigating the call centre fraud in Udaipur, on Wednesday said that six devices were found plugged into laptops and mobile phones at the call centres in Bhupal Pura during the police raid on Saturday.

During investigation, the police found that the devices were Magic Jacks, which are used to make unlimited local and long-distance calls to the United States and Canada.

Eleven laptops, six magic jack devices and 16 mobile phones were recovered from the possession of the accused.

“The accused had purchased this device from an e-commerce website at ₹5,000 to 7,000 each. One end of the cable was hooked into the magic jack and the other into the high speed router (or modem). And the other end of the jack was plugged with a mobile. Some magic jacks were also connected with the laptops,” said Bhagwat Singh Hingar, circle officer, Udaipur.

The magic-jack application was already downloaded on the systems and phones of the accused. “One can easily download this application from various application stores,” said the police official. Once the set-up is ready and device is connected, the home page of the jack will be displayed on the monitor, asking the subscriber to register.

Details such as the telephone number and address are required to register. Police said the fraudsters used the US numbers and addresses obtained from one of their colleagues, who is also co-accused in the case, to hide their identities. Six different US numbers were created by the fraudsters.

Seven accused had taken two adjoined flats on rent, located at the Ayad area falling under Bhupal Pura police station.

“In one of the flats they (accused) used to operate the call centre and in another they used to live. All the accused are residents of Ahmedabad. In Udaipur, they came in contact with a person identified as Amit who provided them high-speed broadband connections,” told Hingar.

JAIPUR:The