India's UP Police Bust SIM Farm Network Disguising Foreign "Law Enforcement" Calls as Indian Numbers
Varanasi Police have dismantled a SIM box network run from three rented sites that converted foreign internet calls into local Indian mobile calls for "digital arrest" fraud. Officers seized six 32-port SIM boxes with 192 slots, VPN gateways and routers, and arrested two people. A mule account linked to the network received Rs 25 lakh from one victim and is tied to 41 complaints across several states.
The Cyber Crime Cell of the Varanasi Police Commissionerate, working with its Pratibimb team and Chitaipur police station, dismantled a SIM box network on 14 October 2026.
The network was used to route foreign scam calls to Indian victims so they appeared to come from local mobile numbers.
Police raided three rented premises across the Shivpur, Lanka and Chitaipur police station areas, arrested two people and recovered six SIM boxes, along with routers, VPN gateways and other equipment.
How the Trail Began
Pratibimb platform of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of Home Affairs facilitates the identification and geospatial mapping of suspected cybercrime infrastructure, including mobile numbers and locations associated with cybercriminal activities.
One of them was a "digital arrest" case from Pune, in which Rs 25 lakh was paid into that account.
When questioned, the account holder revealed that the gang ran SIM boxes from three locations in Varanasi.
How the SIM Box Worked
The boxes used SIM-over-IP technology, and no physical SIM cards were found inside them.
Calls from abroad arrived over the internet, and gateways passed them through local mobile towers as ordinary Indian calls.
Victims saw an Indian number, and the true origin of the call stayed hidden.
This is how the "digital arrest" calls were being made.
Accused
- Arrested: Mohammad Abid, son of Abdul Majid, about 40, of Varanasi, the mule account holder.
- Arrested: Shashi Shekhar Singh, son of Prakash Singh, about 24, of Varanasi.
- Wanted: Saugat Asthana, son of Ravi Kumar Asthana, of Lucknow.
A case, number 256/2026, has been registered at Chitaipur under BNS sections 318(4), 319(2), 317(2), 317(4), 61(2)(b) and 112(2) and Section 66D of the IT Act.
Seized
- Six 32-port SIM boxes with 192 SIM slots and 192 antennas, plus 190 spare antennas
- Three TP-Link Omada VPN gateways, three TP-Link dual-band routers, three Excitel gateways and Airtel fibre equipment
- Three Wi-Fi cameras, four mobile phones, adaptors, and fibre and Ethernet cables
SIM boxes are abused globally for scaling scams
SIM boxes are the last-mile link for overseas scam centres.
They give callers in Southeast Asia or elsewhere a trusted local caller ID and get past the international call labels that warn victims.
The switch to SIM-over-IP, with SIMs held remotely rather than in the box, makes raids harder: the hardware can be seized while the SIM bank keeps running somewhere else.
Following the mule account money proved to be the fastest route to the physical sites.
In the operation to bust the SIM Box network operating from three locations in Varanasi, the Cyber Crime Cell team comprised Inspector Dinesh Chand Bharti, Sub-Inspectors Krishna Kumar Jaiswal and Alok Kumar Yadav, and Constable Ankit Gupta.
The Shivpur Police Station team included Sub-Inspector Amir Bahadur Singh, Head Constable Mohan and Constable Lavkush.
The Lanka Police Station team comprised Sub-Inspector Naveen Chaturvedi and Constable Anurag Chaudhary, while the Chitaipur Police Station team included Sub-Inspector Avnish Kumar and Constables Aditya Tiwari and Sujit Kumar.
The operation was conducted under the supervision of Police Commissioner Mohit Agarwal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crime) Neetu Kamal, and Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Nripendra.