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Cops bust major VoIP racket in Capital
KATHMANDU, AUG 12 -
In a major crackdown on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) racket, Police on Thursday raided a well-equipped illegal VoIP operation centre at Khumaltar in Lalitpur and arrested three Bangladeshi nationals for flouting the telecommunication law.
Acting on a tip-off, a special squad under Inspector Kumod Dhungel of the Metropolitan Police Range Hanumandhoka raided a house and arrested the racketeers—Ashraf Fujman, 30, Nishar Ahammad, 25, and Muktadhir Hussein, 22,—who were found to be operating the VoIP racket from the rented accommodation by blocking local telecom operators’ gateway, thus inflicting a loss of millions of rupees to the government. The kingpin of the racket, Mujamel Haque, who is believed to be operating from Philippines, is absconding.
Police recovered eight VoIP call bypass equipment with capacity to bypass over 800 calls at one time with the use of local SIM cards, seven UPS, US $ 4,400, at least 2,500 SIM cards belonging to local telephone service providers–Nepal Telecom, Ncell and UTL, 17 large batteries, hundreds of recharge cards, one generator and computers. The confiscated materials are said to be worth over Rs. 30 million.
Investigators said this is the biggest racket ever busted in the Capital. The illegal centre had been minting over Rs. 300,000 in daily transactions.
The crackdown has also left behind a big question mark on the way local telecom service providers operate as the racketeers had bought hundreds of SIM cards from employees of the telephone operators without producing documents. This has led investigators to suspect the racket was being operated in collusion with employees of the telecom operators. The owner of the house where the VoIP centre was based, Ram Kumari Maharjan, claimed she was unaware of the illegal activities.
What is VoIP?
Experts say call by-passers make use of the VoIP GSM Gateway to divert international rings from the legal gateway. The call is then transferred to the telecom subscribers through a GSM SIM card. The ISD then displays a personal caller ID on the receiver’s telephone set. VoIP has always been a headache for telecom service providers in the country. VoIP uses broadband Internet for routing phone calls, unlike conventional switching and fibre-optic alternatives. Nepal Telecom has it that racketeers illegally operating VoIP channels have been cheating it of Rs 600 million a year. That means, NTC has been losing around Rs 50 million every month.
Posted on: 2010-08-13 07:57
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