SIM Box fraudsters arrested in Tema

Three suspected SIM Box fraudsters, including a sixteen year old, have been arrested at a hideout at Community 12 in Tema, by the Anti-Telecommunication Fraud taskforce.

Through the illegal SIM box fraud, the suspects have reportedly raked in more than one hundred and ninety thousand dollars.

Two suspects were found at House number B 56, community 12, Tema, busily scratching top-up cards and loading them unto SIM cards to feed the SIM boxes which were operational at the time of their arrest.

The taskforce conducted a search at the premises and retrieved two SIM boxes, seven hundred MTN cards, one hundred airtel and mtn top-up cards. Other items included one generator, two heavy duty batteries, one UPS, one laptop, one mini tablet, and sixteen antennas.

During interrogation, suspects Selasi Dorfenyo and Nicholas Ntsu, named one Eric Akpanya, as the one who engaged them to assist him to operate the SIM boxes.

On July 7th 2015, suspect Eric Akpanya was arrested and confessed to his involvement in the crime. He told investigators that a yet to be identified Lebanese national is his partner.

The Director General of the National Communications Authority, William Tevie, urged the general public to look out for persons who buy volumes of SIM cards and avoid registering those SIM cards.

From 2011 till date, twenty SIM Box fraud cases have been recorded with twenty-four persons arrested.

In January 2015, a former head of the Ghana Real Estates Developers Association (GREDA), Dr Alexander Tweneboah, and nine others were arrested by the Anti-Telecommunication Fraud taskforce.

The activities of the suspects in that case allegedly caused the nation millions of dollars.