Police, Subah collaboration breaks back of SIM Box fraudsters

The crackdown on SIM Box fraudsters has led to the arrest of four persons whose illegal operations cost the nation $77,379,000.              

Three of the suspects — Benjamin Komla Agbo, 28, a Togolese; Basha Aswald Ibrahim, 48, and James Okai, 19 — were arrested by the special taskforce against SIM Box activities on April 28 and 29, 2016.                                   

The fourth suspect, Stephen Mensah, was arrested at Tesano in Accra. He claimed some persons had installed the gadgets used to commit the crime in his house on the pretext that they were inverters that would supply him with power.

He was sent to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters while journalists were being briefed on the arrest of the first three suspects.          

 One of the suspects

Items retrieved from the first three suspects included 1,719 SIM cards from five communication network providers;  sophisticated SIM boxes which had been loaded with unregistered SIM cards, routers, back-up batteries, laptops, mobile phones and others.

Legally, international network operators are to pay 19 cents per minute for calls from their clients to Ghana. However, the international operators evade tax by employing the services of local people who are supplied with the gadgets to terminate international calls.  

The illegal operators route the international calls through local SIM cards, a practice which makes international calls appear as local calls.

Taskforce                     

Briefing journalists in Accra yesterday, the Director General of the CID, Commissioner of Police (COP) Mr Prosper K. Agblor, said the suspects were apprehended through the efforts of the taskforce, with the cooperation of Subah Infosolutions Ghana Limited, which had intensified its fight against the illegal termination and intermediation of international calls.                         

Touching on the successes chalked up so far, Mr Agblor said 30 illegal operators had been arrested since 2015, with some of those arrested being prosecuted and sentenced to jail terms of between three and five years.   

"Despite the numerous arrests, these criminal gangs are undeterred and remain steadfast to their criminal activities," he said.   

On the suspects who were paraded during the press briefing, he said two of them, Ibrahim and Okai, were arrested at Tubah, near Kasoa, on April 28, 2016.              

He said the taskforce had picked signals of their illegal operations, leading to the seizure of their gadgets.    

Items found at the hideout of the suspects included two 92 SIM Box capacity towers, two 32 SIM Box capacity modems, one Microtech router board, a power generating set and mobile phones.                                           

A day after the arrest of the first three suspects, Mr Agblor said, the surveillance team picked signals from Adjirigano in Accra where Agbo was arrested for allegedly engaging in the illegal termination of international calls.         

Items found in his room included four eight-channel SIM boxes, two routers, one D link switch, a battery and its charger.               

Secret locations                   

He said intelligence gathered so far indicated that the SIM box fraudsters currently used sophisticated equipment to evade detection. 

Additionally, it had also been established that some of the illegal operators used Android means of installing the SIM box machines at a separate location from where the other gadgets were installed.   

The CID capo said there had been instances when the taskforce, in collaboration with Subah Infosolutions, had picked up signals which had led to the secret locations where SIM boxes and other gadgets had been retrieved, without arresting any person.

Some of the equipment used by the suspects.

He said in February this year, the team laid surveillance at Gbawe in Accra, where two SIM boxes were actively operating in a kiosk but no persons were arrested.    

Also on February 11, 2016, he said, the team detected an illegal SIM box operation at Bortianor, where a man believed to have engaged in the business for between six months and a year was arrested and his gadgets impounded.         

Then on April 28, 2016, a minor was found monitoring SIM box equipment installed at a location at Dome Pillar Two in Accra.     

Also at the Apklaku Block Factory on April 27, 2016, Mr Agblor said, the taskforce managed to retrieve some SIM box equipment, even though the suspects absconded.                            

Taskforce                                   

The taskforce is made up of representatives of the various telecommunication networks and the police, with support from Subah Infosolutions.                           

Later in an interview, the Chief Executive Officer of Subah Infosolutions Ghana, Mr Been Sasmal, was happy the war on SIM box fraud was being won.                   

He said his outfit had deployed superior and more sophisticated detection systems to contain the activities of the fraudsters. 

The gadgets acquired by the company, he said, were powerful preventive systems that would support the surveillance and intelligence efforts of the taskforce.     

Mr Sasmal explained that it was, however, difficult to trace the paymasters of the illegal operators, as the calls were terminated with the aid of the Internet which allowed anonymity and, therefore, made it impossible to identify those behind them.