Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Rajendra Singh Bhandari, chief of Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) which busted several call by-pass rackets in less than a year, cited his investigations to claim that the ISPs have illegally made fast buck, requiring a special probe under money laundering laws. [break]
“ISPs can easily identify call by-pass through Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG),” said Singh. “And, as a token of their responsibility to the state, they should inform the authorities.”
“However, they not only let the racketeers run their con business but have also hampered investigations by refusing to give information,” Singh said.
Nepal Police has turned loud-mouthed against the ISPs while the ISPs on Sunday staged one hour internet shut-down and a sit-in in front of Nepal Telecom Authority protesting the indictment of two ISPs in connection with a recent call by-pass scandal involving three Chinese nationals.
Subisu and Worldlink, the leading ISPs, have been accused of conniving with the Chinese call by-pass racket which turned out to be the largest ever Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) trafficker following a raid by the CIB at its facilities at Chhetrapati two weeks ago.
The Lalitpur Police had earlier put on trial an ISP named Namche Network for their purported alliance with a Bangladeshi call by-pass racket. The ISP´s owner Sirish Karmacharya was, however, released on bail later. Another case involving Mercantile was dismissed by the Kathmandu Attorney Office.
´A lucrative collusion´
While the ISPs have been trying to appear innocent saying they are not aware of what their clients do with the bandwidth they provide, CIB insists that the companies knowingly provide high bandwidth to VOIP racketeers and that it thus is a stark collusion.
According to Singh, the CIB and other units had frequently corresponded to all 41 ISPs in course of several anti-VOIP operations to collect details of their major clients using a minimum of 1 MB bandwidth.
“They rebuffed us,” Singh said. “Had they informed us on time, the rackets would have been busted in no time, thus saving revenue worth billions.”
The ISPs providing internet service to the call by-pass rackets are also found to have charged the latter unnaturally high. “It would not have been possible without collusion,” Singh added.
Subishu, Singh claimed, has still not responded to the CIB´s letter in connection with the documents regarding a financial deal the company exchanged with the Chinese racketeers.
“The ISPs have not been able to furnish explanation over the big amounts they seem to have taken from racketeers,” Singh said.
Investigative officials also point to Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA) for its lackadaisical approach with regard to the ISPs´ unscrupulous acts.
Nepal Police has busted over a score of call by-pass rackets over the last two years and doubled the revenues of telecom services, retrieving at least 40 million telephone calls every month that were being by-passed by the racketeers.
“The four authorized telecom companies reclaimed more than Rs 8 million in the year 2010 alone,” Singh said.
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