We had this news reported by “The News”, couple of weeks ago that FIA Raided and seized 3 illegal exchanges from F 11, Islamabad.
We are told by reliable sources that these exchanges were being run by a Chinese group, which had Mr. Xu Kun as a member. Xu Kun was assistant to CEO, Zong, China Mobile for last one year.
When we spoke with Mr. Wu Jiang, Director PMO, Project Management, China Mobile, Zong, he confirmed that Xu Kun was found guilty of being doing illegal trafficking in Islamabad – however, he was of the view that Xu Kun was doing all this in his personal capacity.
Mr. Wu Jiang said that Zong has no direct or in-direct connection with employees’ extra circular work that they do. “As soon as we came to know about his involvement, he immediately resigned from his position”, added Mr. Wu Jiang. When we asked about his responsibilities at Zong, he denied our stance and said that he was not the assistant to CEO.
It merits mentioning here that through illegal exchanges, international or overseas calls are converted into VoIP, and by using Internet medium the calls were transmitted to Pakistan where the illegal gateway exchanges containing mobile SIMs/IMSIs, were installed. These internet packages are then converted back to GSM signals (using Telenor, Warid, Zong, Mobilink, Ufone SIMs) and transmitted to destination telephone numbers. It appeared to the recipients that calls were coming from local mobile telephone numbers.
Here is excerpt from The News Article
He said that the original overseas telephone numbers were masked. Some individuals /firms in China, Europe and USA/Canada were engaged in selling overseas calls/cards at flouted rates and were making payments to these foreign nationals into their bank accounts abroad, as their shares to run the illegal business in Pakistan.
He said that they have been using hundreds of SIMs of Mobilink, Telenor, Warid, and Zong for the purpose. They obtained these SIMs in the name of Chinese nationals and companies operating in Pakistan (including M/s Yinghua International (Pvt) Ltd. and M/s Teamsun technology Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd).
The FIA director general said that the matter has also been referred to Interpol for initiating action against their associates abroad and freezing their accounts in various foreign banks. According to PTA estimate, the culprits caused wrongful loss to the national exchequer to the tune of Rs600 million for the last six months. Further investigation is under process and efforts are being made to arrest other culprits.
There are many exchanges that terminate calls on landlines but receive on VOIP. Are these also illegals?
haha.
This is just tooo funny….
Poor Zong!!!
we should not blame to zong, as this has been done by their employee at his own
I wonder how and why they raid on them, there are lot of voips services working around
This certainly cannot be a one man game. There would be more people involved in this as well. ZONG should do a thorough investigation and find out who else is involved. This is the assistant to CEO (big position in a telecom company) that we are talking about. GOD knows how many other ‘influential’ individuals will be involved.
oh , u dont like voip?
Yes its true… there are large number of mobile numbers which are used for this VOIP purpose & many peoples doing this… but the FIA got only one from ZONG??? Strange…
لالچ بری بلا
well said ……
lol
لالچ بری بلا
Come to think of it, a lot of illegal activities are being handled by our neighboring friend, illegal massage parlors, illegal wine shops and now illegal exchanges. :)
That’s what I call Pak-China friendship.
long live pak-china friendship
together we will lead the world in future
He is an Ex-Employee of Huawei Pakistan. Two 2 years back he left Huawei and joined Zong.
Good job, however, there are dozen other such quintum gateways deployed in the country how do they plan to close them down?? They close one and give birth to two more.. :S
warid is the hangout of such networks :)
We’ve been hearing about illegal exchanges for long time now. Is there anybody who can explain it in simple words that how and what the bypass that is illegal.
I wonder if it is illegal or it is just an innovation. Maybe what they are doing is legal and what mobile phone companies are doing is illegal. Ideally most of voice traffic should be on VOIP, but mobile operators are banning this so that people stick to their less efficient old technology, in the meantime they earn tons. What these guys are doing? Selling VOIP cards overseas and providing a service that customers are satisfied with, using some technical/practical imagniation. It would be nice if they just register their company, provide taxes, and then take mobile operators to court.
If i would be running a telecom company, i would hire all of them because these guys can think, and so they are valuable, rather than munhies and dumbs that our telcos are filled with.
If this is illegal then don’t allow any VOIP equipment having FXO ports, but you can easily get those in PC markets in Pakistan, VOIP phones, adaptors with FXO ports. And stupid FIA and PTA call it EXCHANGES. Which is really funny.
Exchanges would bring in your minds that there would be very big equipments , but a small 4×4 inches box of Linksys like SPA3000, SPA3100 can do this so called EXCHANGE thing…lol…I can’t stop laughing at PTA & FIA.
Get a life FIA & PTA, & stop using words “Raid” & “Exchanges” for this as Exchanges is used for huge setup of telephony in Pakistan.
In rest of the world use of this service is completely legal, but as we are living in stone age so do as FIA & PTA wants.
We’ve been hearing about illegal exchanges for long time now. Is there anybody who can explain it in simple words that how and what the bypass that is illegal.
what, you are degrading F I A and P T A by saying they are catching mice?
They are Lion ibne Lion and they are catching big exchanges like the shair they are.
Bush was a garbage man, he wanted to bomb us to stone age. Wasteful bugger.
When our institutions are filled with Nakamaz, incompetent and Sifarshiz, no doubt they will hamper technical innovation and progress of society. Neem Hakeem is worst than a Jahil. PTA kind of stupid worthless organizations are filled with dumbs who don’t understand technology, and anything new is illegal for them. World has moved to VOIP already.
its not game of a single person i think zong iz also involve directly/indircetly all its metter
uh oh, sounds like you too dont like voip
They say “(We won’t discuss here if VoIP should be legalized or not, but law is law)” – why not discuss it? Laws are made by humans, and they can be changed by humans.