Bangladesh News

Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) seized Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) equipment worth around Tk 5 crore from a factory of KDS Group, one of the leading conglomerates of the country, in the port city Friday night.

This was the largest haul of illegal VoIP equipment in the port city, the law enforcers said.

Reinforced by Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), a BTRC committee has been conducting raids in the city since September 26. The committee raided 25 spots so far and detected four ISPs (internet service provider) involved with illegal VoIP business, sources said.

Acting on a tip-off, the joint team raided the KDS Accessories and Packaging Factory at Bayezid Bostami area at around 7:00pm.

The law enforcers found that the illegal VoIP business was run from a secret room of Dominox Technology, also a sister concern of the KDS Group, located on the second floor of a four-storey building in the factory compound.

During the six-hour-long drive, the team seized eight quantum gateways, 250 mobile SIMs (subscriber identity module) and many channel banks with the capacity of two to eight SIM insertion.

They also found a VSat with modem and accessories used in generating overseas calls from the rooftop of the building.

Major Samsuzzoha of Rab Headquarters, Dhaka, who was present during the drive, said that this was the largest haul of VoIP equipment in the port city so far.

In the name of providing nationwide internet service, Dominox Technology had been running the illegal business and thus evading huge amount of tax per day, he added.

The seized items were being removed from the building in the afternoon yesterday.

The joint team raided other offices of KDS Group yesterday to identify any link with the illegal business, sources said.

None could be arrested during the raid. However, the Rab officials were interrogating several engineers who had been found working at Dominox Technology during the raid.

The joint team also seized an illegal VSat from ISpos, an ISP, at Badamtali in Sheikh Mujib Road area on Thursday.

Asia Tel was involved in the illegal VoIP business run by ISpos, Rab sources claimed. Major Samsuzzoha said that they are investigating about a deal between Asia Tel and ISpos regarding the VoIP business in Chittagong.

Besides, the team arrested Mahbubul Inam, manager of BBTS, an ISP, during a raid at the Ispahani building at Lalkhan Bazar on Thursday on charge of providing bandwidths to different people for illegal business. BBTS is a concern of Ispahani Group.

A case was also filed with Bandar Police Station in this connection.

The team also found that Innovate Online, an ISP firm, had been running the illegal VoIP business with their equipment on the rooftop of Hotel Saint Martin in Agrabad.