Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Bungalow-bug man's big profits

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2003 14:16:45 -0400

Bungalow-bug man's big profits

From the understated dormer bungalow he shared with his mother, Umesh
Bharakada produced an array of gadgets usually found in James Bond films.

The 37-year-old fashioned bugging devices to be hidden in everyday objects
such as three-pin plug adaptors, phone sockets and calculators.

From Syston in Leicester, he sold them across the internet to other suppliers,
private investigators and detective agencies earning about £40,000 a year
profit.

[Number plate]

Bharakada even paraded his illicit talents by driving a Rolls-Royce car with the

number plate A15 BUG.

Some of them were the size of your little fingernail
Clive Corrie, Radiocommunications Agency

But his firm called Leicester Surveillance Ltd was tracked down by the
Radiocommunications Agency, part of the Department for Trade and Industry.

One of their investigators, Clive Corrie, told BBC News Online the trail led to
Bharakada's bungalow after firms retailing the bugging equipment said he was
their
supplier.

"He said he didn't have any formal qualifications but you could see he had put a
lot
research into this.

"He had managed to adapt existing circuits and produce his own brand of goods.

"Some of them were the size of your little fingernail.

"Some were built into household devices like three-pin plug adaptors and some
built
into a phone adaptor - these record phone conversations as well as the
conservations from the room.

"They take their power from where they plug into to take away the need for
batteries."

He said the devices being made were the sort of listening tools that might be
used
by the police or security services.

Air safety 'degraded'

Nothing close to what Bharakada was making would be legally sold on the high
street.

"The majority of the ones he was making were operating on a band of frequencies
that are allocated for the Civil Aviation Authority for use by aircraft and they
had
potential to cause interference."

That meant that safety levels of aircraft could have been "degraded" if the bugs
were
being used nearby.

The most powerful bugs, and therefore the most dangerous to aircraft, were
tracking devices which could be attached to cars to allow pursuers to follow
them.

Bharakada told Leicester Magistrates' Court that he was not aware he was
breaking the law under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949.

However, he pleaded guilty on Friday to supplying, using and offering for sale
the
equipment between January and August of last year.

The judge said he could have been jailed but told him to pay a £4,000 fine with
£4,000 costs.

Bharakada's equipment was also taken, which was estimated by Mr Corrie to be
worth £20,000.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/leicestershire/2918127.stm

Published: 2003/04/04 16:25:21