Kolkata SIM box seizures spark crime network fear

The Kolkata Special Task Force has arrested three people, including one Bangladeshi national, from the airport area on September 2 and recovered at least 23 SIM boxes, with a capacity to store 256 SIM slots from different locations, 400 preactivated SIM cards, WiFi modems of different service providers, laptops and other communication equipment from them.

The arrests and the subsequent recovery opened up a Pandora’s Box exposing an international SIM box-based communication racket across the state that routes international phone calls as local calls, which are charged by local mobile service providers. SIM boxes, also known as SIM-banks, are usually fitted with a few hundred GSM SIM cards used to route calls through datafunctional devices.

According to cyber experts a SIM box works as a virtual telephone and the senior police officers investigating the case have expressed serious concern that such illegal exchanges could serve as “secret channels” and could threaten national security while potentially robbing network providers of rightful revenue. Calls rerouted through a SIM box will be masked with a local number.

According to sources, the callers made several attempts to learn about the location and movement of Army contingents in the state of West Bengal. The activity was detected when army officials in Siliguri flagged the suspicious nature of the calls to the helpline.