Three nabbed for international call/SMS bypass

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, July 28: The Central Investigation Bureau arrested three individuals, including an Indian national, for illegally bypassing international calls and SMS from Kanchanpur district on Wednesday.

According to the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), 40-year-old Prabin Khadka, a resident of Dodhara Chandani Municipality in Kanchanpur, 47-year-old Dipak Singh Bohora of Bheemdatta, Kanchanpur, and 41-year-old Guljaar Ahmad, a resident of Delhi, India, were arrested.

The trio was bypassing the calls and SMS from a rented flat on the fifth floor of a five-storey house in the fifth alley of the Campus Road area in Ward No. 18 of Bheemdatta Municipality in Kanchanpur.

The CIB, with the Kanchanpur District Police Office, had raided the flat after receiving a special tipoff about the crime. 

"The trio had been bypassing international calls and SMS for the past four months. They had established Nepal Telecom's SIP PBX Connection for call bypass," read a statement of the arrest by the CIB released on Thursday.

Nepal Telecom's Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Private Branch Exchange (PBX) service is provided to corporate customers as the device helps manage multiple telephone numbers using a single telephone line.

The CIB informed that the SIP PBX connection had a 60-line capacity and was connected through Nepal Telecom's landline number 099-597000. "A CPU with a dedicated server for data gateway, an NTC FTTH Wi-Fi router, a WorldLink Wi-Fi router, two laptops and three mobile phone sets among others were confiscated from the flat," the CIB informed.

According to the CIB, the trio has been kept under the custody of the Kanchanpur District Police Office to carry out necessary legal procedures and further investigation.