It is reported that a simbox detection project for Jordan’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) has reduced bypass fraud by USD1mn within just a few weeks. TRC, with the assistance of LATRO and Zahu Company, is said to have decommissioned equipment used to illegally terminate 14mn minutes of international voice traffic every month. The estimates were made by LATRO and are based on the equipment seized from the fraudsters. Arrests have reportedly been made, but no further details are available. This information comes via a recent blog on LATRO’s corporate website.
TRC tendered for specialist simbox detection services in late 2014; see here for details. At the time, Zain Jordan CEO Ahmad Hanandeh estimated that international bypass cost Jordan USD25mn per year in lost revenues.
Jan Vervloet, LATRO’s Chief Commercial Officer was a recent guest on the Commsrisk podcast. He described how fraudsters increasingly use SIM servers to avoid detection, and how fraud managers could distinguish GSM gateways from ordinary handsets by analyzing network protocol signatures. You can listen to the podcast here.
