A Ghanaian Communications Engineer based in Italy has been sentenced to five years in jail by an Accra Fast Track High Court for illegally terminating international calls to Ghana. Hassan Nonni, 50 was arrested on 13th November, 2010 at Dome in Accra for illegally terminating international calls to Ghana using the SIM Boxes containing SIM cards of Vodafone, Airtel and MTN. He was arrested with two 3-SIM boxes, each with the capacity to hold 124 SIM cards and one I-GATE SIM box which was fully loaded with 32 SIM cards. Hassan originally pleaded not guilty but changed his plea to guilty on two counts of operating a communication service without license and interfering with electronic communication services to Ghana causing losses to Vodafone, Airtel, MTN and the state. He has subsequently been convicted to five years custody for each count to run concurrently. SIM Box fraud is an illegal practice where fraudsters fit SIM cards from various telecom operators into SIM boxes and route international calls to Ghana through those SIM cards and make them appear on the recipients’ handset as if the call was a local call. There is evidence to show those fraudsters have collaborators abroad, and the calls they are able to route are those usually made through the use of call cards abroad rather than directly from cell phones or fixed line phones. Minister of Communications, Haruna Iddrisu announced last year that the practice cost government 5.8 million dollars a month in taxes alone, which meant it cost the telecom operators even more money. Global reports on the telecoms industry last year indicated that SIM box fraud cost the industry 150 million dollars. Telecom operators have since last year been fighting the menace and to date Vodafone, Tigo and MTN have managed to reduce the use of their SIM cards for SIM box fraud to the barest minimum. But Airtel SIM cards have become the SIM of choice for fraudsters, and the company attributes it to the relatively low call rates on Airtel. The ongoing SIM card registration is expected to curtail the SIM box fraud as all unregistered numbers would be deactivated and owners of all registered SIMs can be traced through their SIM cards. Story by Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona/Adom News/Ghana