SIM box fraud: Ex-GREDA boss, 5 others arrested; State loses $33.5m in 7 months
An operation to clamp down on illegal SIM box operators has led to the arrest of six persons, including a former President of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA).
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The activities of the former GREDA President, Alexander Tweneboah, and the other alleged SIM box fraudsters are said to have cost the nation $33,592,320 or GHc107,495,000 in revenue loss between a period of five and seven months.
The operation also led to the seizure of thousands of SIM cards from the suspects, including 21,232 recovered from one operator alone.
The other suspects are: Ebenezer Boateng, Victor Owusu, Kwadwo Asare, Alvin Habib and Francis Abbey.
They have been arraigned on two counts of illegal termination and operation of telecommunications without authority under the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772) and remanded into police custody pending further investigations.
The clampdown by the Joint Anti-Telecom Fraud Task Force is described as the biggest and most successful in the fight against illegal SIM box operators and the Minister of Communications, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, is upbeat about a relentless war against the fraudsters.
“We will not rest; we will not falter; we will not sleep. We will chase the fraudsters wherever they are, even if they are big men,” he told journalists in Accra yesterday.
The imperatives
A SIM box fraud is a setup in which fraudsters install SIM boxes with multiple low-cost prepaid SIM cards.
The facility enables the fraudsters to terminate international calls through local phone numbers in the respective country to make it appear as if the call is a local one.
The activities of SIM box operators have been on the increase in recent times, leading to a huge loss of revenue to the nation.
The Joint Anti-Telecom Fraud Task Force was established as a timely response to the fast emerging SIM box fraud.
The task force is made up of detectives from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters in Accra and officials from the National Communications Authority (NCA) and telecom service operators, with technical support from Subah Info Solutions Ghana Limited.
The operations
The Commissioner of the CID, Mr Prosper Kwame Agblor, briefed journalists on successful operations by the task force in Accra, Tema, Kumasi, Koforidua and Batsonaa between January 10 and 16, 2015.
The operations led to the seizure of SIM box equipment, heavy duty batteries, small generators, Internet routers, desktop and laptop computers, SIM servers, 4G Internet modems and large quantities of assorted SIM cards of the various telecommunications service providers.
“It may interest you to know that this is one of the biggest and most successful operations embarked upon by the task force as far as SIM box fraud is concerned,” Mr Agblor stated.
He said the participation of Subah Info Solutions in the operations was by virtue of a contract it had with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to monitor local and foreign inbound calls for the purpose of checking leakages in national revenue.
He said the operations required a high degree of accuracy and precision, adding that the use of sophisticated electronic gadgets by Subah helped to locate the illegal SIM boxes promptly for a swift response by the task force.
Re-registration
Responding to questions from journalists, Dr Boamah said as part of measures to address illegal SIM box operations, there would be a re-registration of SIM cards.
He, however, said the exercise would be done after the issuance of the proposed national identification cards (NIC) in order to “secure the SIM cards”.
He said a more effective approach in dealing with the problem was the implementation of the interconnection clearing house system which would bounce off calls made by unregistered SIM cards, apart from providing other safeguards.
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The system is expected to come into full operation by the end of this year.
Writer’s Email: kofi.yeboah@graphic.com.gh