The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested three people along with illegal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) equipment, worth Tk 5 crore.
They were arrested from the New Market, Turag and Shah Ali areas of Dhaka city on Thursday morning.
The arrestees are-ring leader of VoIP business Md Kazi MM Mahmud alias Chhotan, 32, Rakib Hasan, 30, and Babar Uddin, 30.
RAB-10 Commanding Officer (CO) Additional DIG Mahfuzur Rahman confirms the matter in a press briefing at RAB media center in Dhaka’s Karwan Bazer on Thursday.
According to the rules, a maximum of 15 SIMs can
be registered in the name of one person. But this group was using 3,400 SIMs of Teletalk in illegal VoIP business, he said.
He also said that the ring is illegally terminating around six lakh minutes of international calls in Bangladesh through illegal telecommunication installations. According to the current international call termination rate, the government is being deprived of revenue around Tk 10.95 crore per year.
The official said that acting on a tip-off a team of RAB conducted raid at Talha Enterprise on Elephant Road under New Market Police Station on Wednesday around noon and arrested Rakib and Babar along with illegal VoIP equipment.
Later, they also conducted another raid in Turag area on the basis of their information and found the VoIP control room. There RAB arrested ring leader Mahmud Chiton.
At the time, 19 SIM box devices, 418 GSM antennas, 3400 pieces of Teletalk SIM, seven mini computers, three wireless routers, five Bangla Lion modems and routers, three laptops, a laptop cooler, 10 different chargers, six USB modems were used in the VoIP business. 12 power cables, 24 console cables, three free-plugs, four multiplugs, a mouse, four mobile phones were recovered, he added.
Replying a question, the RAB-10 Commanding Officer said that it will be investigated how the ring was buying and using 3400 SIMs of the government company Teletalk. It will also be investigated whether their VoIP call was being used in criminal activities.
