File Photo: Xu kun, an ex-employee of Zong, China Mobile
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.
