89 VoIP centers raided since 2009
Kathmandu, January 6
The Central Investigation Bureau said it raided as many as 89 illegal Voice Over Internet Protocol call centres across the country and arrested 141 operators since the Nepal Police launched a crackdown against them in 2009.
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CIB has been carrying out action against VoIP racketeers under ‘Operation Voice Fox’. According to the supreme investigative agency of Nepal Police, it rounded up 141 VoIP racketeers and filed cases against them in courts, claiming a total compensation of approximately Rs 13.45 billion.
The arrestees were produced in the courts of the concerned districts where their illegal VoIP centres were raided. Of them, 105 were Nepalis and 36 foreigners, most of them from Bangladesh. According to CIB, all of them were charged under the Telecommunications Act-1997.
As per the act, a person who intentionally causes adverse effect, damage or any other loss to the telecommunication structure of the country is liable to a fine equal to the loss or five years in jail or both.
In its 89th operation, CIB earlier this month conducted coordinated raids on two VoIP call centres operating from Samakhushi and Tahachal, and rounded up four persons, including a convict involved in the telecommunications crime.
CIB officials also seized a huge cache of equipment used for bypassing international calls from their rented rooms.
The arrestees are Javed Khan (29) of Kathmandu, Diwakar Nakarmi (32) and Navinm Kayastha (24) of Sindhupalchowk and Jayaram Gautam (30) of Lalitpur.
Of them, Khan was the mastermind of the VoIP racket and was on the run after Kathmandu District Court sentenced him to two years in prison along with a fine of Rs 100,000 on June 8, 2014.
CIB also seized more than 21,000 units of SIM cards of various telecom service providers and a huge cache of hi-tech equipment used in VoIP call centres.
The racketeers were found to have been involved in blocking the telecom service providers’ legal gateway to bypass incoming international calls, causing revenue losses to the authorised telecom companies in the country.
Officials of the Central Investigation Bureau said call bypassers use Voice over Inernet Protocol GSM gateway to divert international incoming calls from the official gateway by using SIM cards.
The call is transferred to telecom subscribers through a GSM SIM card.
The ISD then displays a personal caller ID on the receiver’s mobile phone set.
