Bengaluru, Mar 17 (IANS): A roadside tea seller, running a parallel illegal telephone exchange, was arrested by the Bengaluru Central Crime Branch on Tuesday, an official statement said.

According to a CCB statement, the arrested was identified as Ashraf Unichiravittal, 33, originally hailing from Kerala's Calicut.

The CCB statement said that Unichiravittal, who was running a roadside tea stall for the last couple of years in Soladevanahall police station limits, was using it as his cover while running a full-fledged telephone exchange which was used to convert international calls into local calls.

"This was causing huge losses to mobile companies in the state. This came to light after the police got a tip off from one of the telephone companies," the police said.

The police claimed that Unichiravittal was running a roadside tea shop in Chikkabanagvara while he operated the telephone exchange in another area in Soladevanahalli.

The CCB refused to divulge any more details, except that they were investigating in depth as some of the equipment seized from him is not easily available in the open market.