Afriwave Telecom says it has deactivated more than 300,000 numbers suspected to have been used for Sim-Boxing, an illegal activity that involves diverting foreign calls to appear as local calls.
The company said in a press release that the detection and the deactivation were done over the past five months.
It explained that Afriwave, in collaboration with SIGOS, the worldwide leader in real-time SIM-Box detection, had chosen to go for a centralised approach, which allowed the two to get a necessary nationwide view on fraudulent activities on the Ghanaian networks.
“Afriwave and SIGOS have set up a campaign including a drastic increase of detection test calls and a deactivation platform linking up all operators. Detected SIM-Box numbers, thanks to this solution, are swiftly relayed to the mobile operators and deactivated before they become profitable. The campaign, since the start, has led to the detection of over 300,000 Sim-Box numbers,” the statement said.
Routing international calls
SIM-Box fraud is a set up where fraudsters in Ghana connive with partners abroad to route international calls through the Internet, using voice over Internet (VOIP) and terminate those calls through a local phone number in Ghana to make it appear as if the call is a local call.
The caller is often not aware of the activities of these cyber fraudsters, whose activities result in the loss of revenue to the state. SIM-Boxes also have a negative impact on the call quality received by end customers such as background noise.
The Director of Corporate Affairs at Afriwave Telecom, Mr Donald Gwira, said, “We are committed to delivering on our mandate to fight telecommunications fraud across all mobile network operators.”
“Sim-Box numbers are detected by the minute and relayed to the mobile network operators for immediate deactivation.This makes it cumbersome for the fraudsters to keep up as they have to constantly go back to the market to buy more SIM cards to re-stock,” he added.
"Working with the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the law enforcement agencies in Ghana, we will be stepping up our strategy of Test Call Generations which is what we are currently doing to include Geolocation solution," Mr Gwira said.
The solution is expected to help expose the location of the equipment and thier operators for confiscation and prosecution such that SIM-Boxing can be reduced to levels where it is no longer profitable for fraudsters.
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