UP STF unearths international telephone exchange in Noida; 3 arrested, kingpin former Ranji player

Noida: The Special Task Force (STF) of Uttar Pradesh Police busted a gang running an international telephone exchange and arrested three people from Sector-132 in Noida on Thursday. Police said that the leader of the gang is Ashutosh Bora, a resident of Gurugram, Haryana, who is a former Ranji player.

Police said that the calls were being made by the gang by landing 'international voice calls' in private servers causing crores of rupees revenue loss to the Government.

According to Dynamite News correspondent, the other two gang members Mohammad Shoaib of Kanpur and Abhishek Srivastava of Mirzapur have also been arrested. 

Abhishek is 12th pass. He learned computer hardware and net banking while living in Mirzapur.

Dynamite News correspondent further reports, five CPUs, four mobiles, WiFi router, Matrix software, 45 debit and credit cards of various banks were recovered from their possession. Eight lakh rupees in their various bank accounts have been frozen. The gang was active for the last two years.

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Kuldeep Narain, Senior Superintendent of Police, STF, Noida unit said, “STF had received information about illegal operation of telephone exchange at Sify Data Center located in Sector-132. The center was raided in collaboration with the Department of Telecom and Tata Telecom Services Limited."

“The leader of this gang, Ashutosh Bora, is a graduate. He has played Ranji Trophy in Under-19 and Under-23 from Jharkhand but got involved in cheating due to poor performance in cricket," added  Narain.

He said, “During the investigation, it was found that Bora started cheating the new players by promising them a place in Ranji Trophy, IPL. In 2021, in a similar fraud, a case was ragistered against Ashutosh at police station, Azad Maidan in Mumbai and he was sent to jail. He was released on bail from jail aftr about three months.

In another case, some Anshulraj had complained to the Gurugram police of cheating of eight lakh rupees by Ashutosh. A case was registered about two years back in Police Station Sector-50 Gurugram (Haryana) and Ashutosh had to go to jail. He was released after three months.

Police said that during his stay in the jail, he had met Sonu Kumar of Delhi who told Ashutosh about illegal telephone exchange. Through Sonu, Ashutosh Bora was introduced to mastermind Mohammed Ali living in Dubai. Similarly, a server of Mohammad Ali is working in Dubai, which Ashutosh had connected to his illegal telephone exchange.

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He said that bypassing the country's telephone system, calls were being made at many places in the country by converting international calls from Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) to local networks. Due to which the telecom company was suffering huge loss of revenue.

Police said, ransom and hawala were also being used. “The calls regarding the missing of two children to their families were made through this illegal telephone exchange. A case has been registered in this regard at Old Industrial Police Station, Panipat (Haryana). Ashutosh was wanted in this case," said the police.

The police officer said that about four cases are registered against Ashutosh in Mumbai, Gurugram, Panipat and Noida. 

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• #STF
• #Ranji Player
• #Noida
• #International Telephone Exchange
• #Gurugram
• #Haryana