A financial high court has sentenced a 30-year-old Network Engineer, Ebenezer Boateng, to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour, plus a fine of 3, 000 penalty units (GH1736, 000) for engaging in SIM BOX fraud, all to run concurrently.
The convict was charged with three counts to wit providing electronic communications service without license, possessing illegal device and knowingly obstructing and interfering with sending, transmission, delivery and reception of communications.
The trial Judge, Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe in her ruling said, the accused failed in all certainty to discharge the burden of innocence on all three charges leveled against him.
In her ruling she instructed that, “The SIM Boxes and the SIM Cards are to be destroyed by the prosecution under the supervision of the registrar of this court; the generators and the laptops shall be confiscated by the NCA to be given to any deprived school of their choice.”
Brief facts
The brief facts presented to the court by Ms. Stella Ohene Appiah, a State Attorney noted that based on signals received on SIM Boxing activities going on in Koforidua, on January 9, 2015, a joint Anti-fraud taskforce of the National Communications Authority, Ghana Police Service and the Telecom Operators embarked on an operation in Koforidua.
According to her, “with the help of a Sim Box locating device, the activities of the accused person were traced to the top floor of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust building opposite the Vodafone office.
“The accused person, Ebenezer Boateng, a Network Engineer, was met in his office with two others sitting behind a computer and when asked what he was doing there, he told the team that he was operating a wireless service for the public.
Upon a closer look at the opened pages on his computer the team realised that he was operating a SIM BOX. A search in his office led to the retrieval of four 16-slot SIM BOXES, three laptop computers, one standby generator, an inverter, router, large quantities of assorted Sim cards from Vodafone, Airtel, and MTN and about 3,296 used assorted scratch cards of three service providers.
“Upon his arrest, he confessed to the team that he was indeed operating a SIM BOX, but he was doing so for an Afghan Citizen, one Rahim Abdullai Mohammed, resident in Dubai and he was paid a monthly salary of $300.00. He also told the police that the two other people arrested with him had just been employed by him to help him reload credit onto the SIM cards and he was going to pay them from his salary.
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