Phone scam rings up huge financial losses for Telkom

Phone scam rings up huge financial losses for Telkom

JAKARTA (JP): Eleven Indian and Pakistani nationals are among
13 people arrested for alleged involvement in a telephone billing
scam.

City Police spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said yesterday the
fraudulent activities caused state-owned telecommunications
company PT Telkom financial losses of about Rp 8 billion.

"The suspects used but did not pay for total of 63 lines in
their illegal operation of the three-party line service here in
the last couple of months," he said.

The two Indonesian suspects are Sofian, a former Telkom
employee, and Irawaty, whom Aritonang identified as an employee
of a private company.

He also named eight Indians -- Gurmeet Singh, Suk Jit Pal
Singh, Lachman Singh, Devray, Budh Singh, Sukhadave, Ghanzanfar
Zurgam and Humayon Shahzad -- and Pakistanis Husein, Illyas and
Shahid Islam.

Aritonang said they were arrested separately last Friday and
Wednesday at their rented houses in Bogor, West Java, and Mangga
Besar, West Jakarta.

"They were suspected of cheating, stealing and illegally using
the telephone lines by connecting them to a telecommunication
service provider in Kuwait, which provides International Direct
Dialing services mostly to Kuwaiti customers who make calls to
around 13 different countries, including the United States, Iraq
and Europe," he said.

He said the suspects were charged under Article 36 of the 1989
Law No. 3 on Telecommunications. It carries a maximum one-year
jail sentence or Rp 10 million fine.

Aritonang said Sofian allegedly helped the other suspects
obtain the telephone lines and provided supervision on technical
aspects of using the three-party line service.

He said the scam was uncovered when Telkom tried to contact
subscribers who were delinquent in paying their outstanding phone
bills.

"It found the addresses but not the people because they had
moved to other areas. It also found that some numbers were used
by people who used the same address."

He said the suspects lived in separate groups and moved
regularly to new homes.

"They moved to other places to avoid being traced by Telkom
because they simply did not want to pay for the phone bills."

Aritonang said the suspects used at least five different
addresses, including the ones in Bogor and Mangga Besar, in their
attempt to avoid being traced. (cst)