The cell phones of the five people linked with the scam had telephone numbers of Pakistani nationals.

Three persons have been arrested and two others detained from Satna district of Madhya Pradesh in connection with Chinese SIM Box-enabled espionage and terror funding racket.

Interestingly, one of the individuals was arrested by the same agency about two-and-a-half years back in connection with a similar spy racket.

The accused have been identified as Balram Singh, Sunil, and Shubham while the identity of the two other detained individuals has still not been disclosed.

Balram Singh, the alleged kingpin of the racket was arrested by the MP Anti-terrorist Squad (ATS) in 2017. All three arrested individuals have been handed over to the Madhya Pradesh ATS while the remaining two are still being questioned by the Satna police.

According to the police, the two detained people have connections in the state capital Bhopal and Indore. Satna police had detained them after getting a tip-off about the fake telephone exchange.

The cell phones of the five people linked with the scam had telephone numbers of Pakistani nationals and all of them were in constant touch with at least 15 Pakistan numbers through WhatsApp chat and calls, police said.

According to the police, the Pakistani handlers used Chinese Sim box enabled fake telephone exchanges to cheat Indian citizens through various frauds including phone lottery and the money was then deposited in bank accounts of Indian nationals on a monthly rent ranging anything between Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000.

All of the men were allegedly used by the ISI to transfer the money parked in the accounts of Indian nationals for various operations of the Pakistani spy agency in India.

Interestingly, Balram was arrested along with BJP IT cell coordinator Dhruv Saxena in February 2017.

At the time, Balram was accused of managing accounts and had transferred money to two Pakistani spies, Satvender and Dadu, who were arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir police in November 2016.

Satvinder and Dadu were hired by the ISI for passing on information about the movement of Indian troops and location of Indian Army camps and bridges.