Bhubaneswar: In a major breakthrough against organised cybercrime, police have busted a sophisticated SIM box fraud racket operating from the state capital and arrested two BTech dropouts from Kerala in connection with the case.
The Special Squad, in coordination with the Cyber Police Station, conducted a raid at a boys’ hostel in the Chandrasekharpur area and unearthed the illegal setup. During the search, officials seized 10 SIM boxes, more than 100 SIM cards, laptops functioning as servers, and WiFi routers from the rented premises.
According to investigators, the accused were using SIM box technology to bypass authorised telecom gateways and route international calls illegally. The operation allegedly enabled calls originating from countries such as the United States and several European nations to appear as local calls in India, thereby evading international call charges and regulatory monitoring.
Police said the duo used illegal network jumping techniques to mask call origins and facilitate fraudulent communications. By rerouting international traffic through locally registered SIM cards, they allegedly siphoned off significant sums of money.
Officials revealed that the SIM cards recovered during the raid were registered in Assam and were being used unlawfully in Odisha. The accused reportedly deployed VOS 3000 software—believed to have originated from Bangladesh—to manage the call routing system. The hardware equipment used in the operation was allegedly sourced from China.
Preliminary investigation suggests the racket may have interstate and possible international links. Authorities are now examining digital evidence seized from the laptops to trace financial transactions and identify other individuals involved in the network.
The accused, who had reportedly dropped out of engineering courses midway, were actively managing the setup from the hostel room.
Police said further investigation is underway to uncover the full extent of the operation and dismantle any remaining links in the cyber fraud chain.
