THE Communications Minister, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, has expressed the government’s commitment to relentlessly fight the menace of Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) Box fraud which is denying the state and telecom operators several millions of dollars.
“We have made some inroads into that resolve which has resulted in the arrest and prosecution of some people but the fight continues relentlessly”, he told the Daily Graphic shortly after another arrest was effect of a syndicate operating from their base in Oregon, United States of America (USA).
Collaboration between the Anti-Fraud Unit of the National Telecommunications Authority (NCA), the telecom service provider, and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service led to the busting of six members of a SIM Box syndicate operating in the United States (US) and Accra.
The members of the syndicate, with their partners in the State of Oregon, are said to have carried out their illegal activities in the past eight months, making a profit of GH¢7.2 million.
Those arrested were Kofi Osei, 26; Eugene Parker, 27; Richard Kwakye, 28; Kingsley Lartey, 29; Kenneth Kpetsigo, 25, and Mawuli Ahiekpor, 30.
A US-based company, UPM Telecom, is said to be the brain behind the syndicate, as it hosts a SIM server in the US, while the six host their clients’ servers from their bedrooms and other strategic locations in Ghana.
‘SIM box’ fraud takes place when individuals or organisations buy thousands of SIM cards offering free or low cost calls to mobile numbers. The SIM cards are then used to channel national or international calls away from mobile network operators and deliver them as local calls, costing operators revenues.
African Mobile Operators are said to be under serious threat from SIM box fraud as mobile networks and government regulators are facing a staggering annual revenue losses from ‘GSM Gateway’ or ‘SIM box’ fraud.
Mr Iddrisu admitted that the people behind the fraud used sophisticated equipment to perpetrate their crime but gave the assurance “through the efforts of the anti SIM Box Fraud and the security agencies, we will be able to apprehend the suspects to make them face the full rigours of the law”.
Asked what has been done to those earlier arrested, he responded that, while some of the cases were still pending in court, others have been found guilty and jailed.
The Communications Minister called for more collaboration between the telcos and the regulator of the industry to ensure that those behind the criminal act were brought to book.
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