According to the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Police Commissionerate, there is an enormous amount of SIMbox crime going on in the Laxmisagar area of the city. During the period of about 5 to 6 months, this racket has been active, illegally intercepting international calls made in India through the use of telephone lines. As a result of the operation led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Bhubaneswar, the accused, Rakesh Mandal, was captured after a raid was conducted based on reliable intelligence.
As a result of the organized cybercrime syndicate's foreign links, it proved to be a successful crime organization. A native of West Bengal, Raju Mandal is accused of being a conduit between the larger syndicate operation that operates from across the border and the arrested accused. As an international call rerouting system, Mandal had SIM boxes installed in two rented houses in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, where international calls were redirected to Pakistan, China and many other places in western Asia.
Mandal used the SIM boxes he had installed in both houses he rented in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, to reroute international calls made by his customers to Pakistan, China, and West Asia using communication systems.
A senior police official has confirmed that a Bangladeshi national identified as Asadur Jaman is the mastermind of the racket, of which Mandal acted as the local handler in the area, and he is responsible for all its operations.
The matter is being investigated further to determine what the next step should be.
During the trial stage, the accusers are subjected to intense questioning that seeks to clarify their motives, their methods, and their mode of operation.
Since there are confirmed foreign connections by the gang, the possibility of their subversive and anti-national activities cannot be excluded in the future.
To crack this case, the Odisha police might be forced to seek assistance from other investigative agencies, as well as Interpol, because the kingpin of the racket is an Indian citizen, according to Sanjeeb Panda, Commissioner of Police of Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Commissionerate.
In this case, the main purpose of the racket was to earn money by using illegal means to achieve its objectives. As a result, the individuals involved in this scam could receive substantial profits by infiltrating international calls into Indian networks through the collaborative efforts of foreign organizations. There was a direct and indirect financial loss as a result of their actions, as well as a threat to national security being posed by them. There may have been Cyber Fraud and Blackmail going on here, as well as threatening calls and threatening emails being sent from these criminals.
The accused, Rakesh Mandal, informed the investigators during his interrogation that a similar arrangement was operating at an earlier location in Odisha.
Now that he has been taken into custody by the police, he will be subject to further investigation by them.
As a result of this incident, society is reminded of how some individuals misuse technology to violate the law and harm society at large. Fortunately, the police were able to keep an eye on this racket and their cybercrime experts assisted them in dismantling it.
There must, however, be continued vigilance conducted to prevent such rackets from emerging in the future; otherwise, they may spread.
The accused person had been found carrying more than 1,000 preactivated SIM cards, besides the SIM boxes, as well as other equipment, which was recovered from him.
It is believed that the message was sent through preactivated SIMs to deceive the victims.
A SIM card is used in a SIM box (a machine-based number) to defraud people in many parts of the country as well as abroad by using the SIM cards to defraud people through SIM boxes. Cybercriminals find this to be a useful operational mode of operation to carry out their criminal activities.
Also, these boxes are used to conceal the original phone numbers that are written on the boxes. According to the police, cybercrime, hate speech, terrorist acts, extortion, and other illegal activities are easily committed using this tool, which poses challenges for law enforcement agencies as they struggle to keep up with the increasing activities.
