Nazim has been identified as the main accused in the case. He had visited China for receiving training to run an illegal telephone exchange.

Mumbai: Ater busting an illegal telephone exchange in Govandi-Trombay, the Mumbai crime branch has sought the help of the state’s Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL) at Kalina to retrieve data from the seized SIM boxes and the servers that were used to convert Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls to normal ones.  

Officials of Unit V of crime branch have also recovered over 1,000 more SIM cards that were being used in the SIM boxes for transferring the multiple calls generated from Gulf region. The officials said that the Indian diaspora staying in the Gulf countries use the virtual calling cards which are legal there, however, are illegal in India. Nazim Shaikh (27), Shams Shaikh (34), Shahid Jamal (36), Noor Mohammad Shaikh (35) and Nassir Hussain (30) have been arrested. Nazim has been identified as the main accused in the case. He had visited China for receiving training to run an illegal telephone exchange.

“The FSL’s help has been sought for getting the locations of the callers and IMEI numbers they used, which have been saved in the servers. This will also help us find the people who received the calls here. The purpose of the calls is under investigations, and though no suspicious calls have been found yet, the ATS is also probing if all calls were safe,” said a crime branch officer, who is part of the investigation team.  

One of the important details yet to be dug is the quantum of money  generated from such calls.