CBI busts illegal ISD calls racket

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 23. The CBI today claimed to have smashed a major telecom scam, causing a huge revenue loss to the Government, and registered a case against a private firm.

The agency conducted a joint raid in association with technical experts of the VSNL on the premises of Dev Communications, Gurgaon, and confiscated sophisticated equipment attached with a satellite antenna installed on the roof-top. It was being used for receiving international voice calls illegally from the U.S. and other countries

The calls were being diverted to various telephone numbers of Delhi, bypassing the VSNL network. The firm had obtained 195 telephone connections to facilitate the transfer of calls. A substantial loss of revenue worth crores of rupees had been caused to the Government.

In case of the U.S., the revenue sharing arrangement for the incoming calls is 0.85 cents per minute, 50 per cent of which is kept by the U.S. authorities and 50 per cent transferred to the Indian authorities.

Thus, the loss of revenue for incoming calls from U.S. due to this illegal diversion is around Rs. 18 per minute per call.

The firm did not obtain the required licence or permission from the VSNL and Wireless Programme Coordination to install the equipment, thus making the installation and maintenance of such equipment illegally under the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933.

The company is being run by a retired Major, Atul Dev, who is having business relation with a U.S.-based firm.

All the equipment was sent by the foreign firm through a courier and were received by the retired Major who paid as Rs. 11 lakhs as Customs duty.

The equipment was installed in June last year by the U.S. engineers of that firm.

The foreign firm has already sent $225,000 (about Rs. 1 crore) to Dev Communications as its share of proceeds on account of making incoming international voice calls illegally from the U.S. The CBI has also seized various deposits worth about Rs. 60 lakhs of Dev Communications lying with differing banks.

The agency has not ruled out the possibility of involvement of officials of Telecom Department and this angle was also under investigation.

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Section  : National
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