Fast money on Simbox fraud in Ghana: high rates of international calls and tax avoidance

The police said the criminals control the unit through wireless system in order to escape arrest when a unit is detected the police have meanwhile intensify investigation to arrest the perpetrators and called on the public to volunteer information to fast-track the awake.

A joined team of document and visa fraud unit of the police cid and Suba Info Solutions has intercepted the operations of yet another simbox fraud gang in Accra.

The Friday operation also retrieved 8,672 sim cards belonging to MTN, Airtel, Glo and Tigo and two illegal simbox machines and other gadgets.

Simbox activity was busted in Ghana (Accra). According to the documents and visa fraud unit of the police CID the tax force was hinted about the suspicious behavior of some people in suburb of Accra.

After three hours the special mission for the detection of illegal simbox operations picked the signal for the station and led the team to small container usually used in mobile phone activities. There was no one in the container which was locked. The team broke into the container and retrieved two illegal simbox machines loaded with 128 SIM card each for MTN and Airtel, 1 inventor and three huge car batteries.

The team also retrieved a large number of used and unused SIM cards belonging to MTN, Airtel, Glo and Tigo from the container. This include 5232 MTN SIM cards, 2984 Airtel, 288 Glo and 94 Tigo cards.

The police says the operators rented a house in the area pretest of doing mobile phone cards and units vendor in business but planted the fraudulent system.

The police said the criminals control the unit through wireless system in order to escape arrest when a unit is detected the police have meanwhile intensify investigation to arrest the perpetrators and called on the public to volunteer information to fast-track the awake.

Simbox equipment in Accra hotel

The Simbox fraud operations were uncovered in some parts of Accra.

The increase in the arrest of the illegal simbox operators are as a result of Suba Infosolutions Ghana injection as more machines capable of remotely detecting the illegal activity.

Several Simbox and machines sim cards and scratch cards belonging to all the
networks in a country and other gadgets were seized during the operations. Operators are three of the six places managed to escape arrest the successful operations led to the blocking of over 77 million dollars which could have been lost to the state.

The police also expressed regret over how a hotel on a Spintex Road saw nothing wrong with the fraudsters using its room for the legal operation.

“Criminals then specifically instructed the hotel staff that their rooms should not be opened let alone be cleaned for no apparent reason.

You can all agree that this is puzzling and shocking. I take this opportunity to advise hotel workers and the general public to be security conscious in observing recording and to report all such suspicious behaviors to the security agencies.”

A director at Suba InfoSolutions is worried: “The activity is illegal so that definitely has to be arrested. It is against the laws of the state to be involved in simboxing. During the process of the media briefing the simbox task force returned with yet another arrest from Tesano. 28 year old Steve Mensa claimed they were set up by a man whose name he could not provide.”

Cybercrime and cyber-fraud activities are on the rise in recent times. SIM Box fraud is just one of the ways cyber fraudsters earn quick money. It has become a very important area of cybercrime in the telecommunications sector in Ghana. This article touches on the nature of SIM Box fraud, how it works, its effects, and some control mechanisms in Ghana.

SIM Box Fraud in Ghana by iipgh.org

Cybercrime and cyber-fraud operations are on the rise in recent years. Simbox fraud is just one of the ways cyber fraudsters earn quick and big money. It has become a very significant area of cybercrime in the telecommunications sector in Ghana nowadays. This article touches on the nature of SIM Box fraud, how it works, its effects, and some control mechanisms in Ghana.

The Simbox activity generally is a technical concept which is implemented to reroute or bypass international traffic channels from one country to a SIM Box device in another country. When someone receives a call from abroad and the recipient sees a local phone number on the phone screen, then it means that call was routed through a Simbox.

Simbox is a device with dozens of slots for SIM cards. The entire box could hold between 10 to 1000 SIM cards. Below you can see how simboxing works.

The flow of international and local call traffic

When a caller initiates a call in country A, the call is carried through the internet (also known as voice over IP- VoIP), the caller will be redirected (rerouted) through the SIM Box to the recipient in B Ghana. The call appears like a local call to the recipient in Ghana.

How the Fraudsters Make Money in Ghana

SIM Box fraud is a profitable business because the GSM terminators receive the international charges for the local calls. The network operator whose SIM cards were used to terminate the calls in Ghana only get paid for a local call rate because the call was rerouted through a local SIM card.