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)