HARARE - A Harare man has been charged with operating a telecommunications system without a licence.
Emmanuel makumbe, 30, allegedly contravened the Postal and Telecommunications Act after he manipulated the International Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
It is alleged that Makumbe acquired two Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) gateways which allowed him to harness all international calls from around the world, manipulate
the calls and make them appear as though they were being made locally.
It is alleged that the GSM has software to manipulate the calls and make them appear as local traffic originating from the local numbers, thereby by-passing the international
gateway.
Makumbe’s actions, according to State papers, prejudiced the mobile operators of international termination traffic revenues.
According to the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz), Makumbe is not licensed to operate such telecommunication services.
The offence came to light last Friday when detectives from CID Homicide received information from Lloyd Chirindo, a loss control officer at Telecel Zimbabwe. Chirindo told the police
officers that he had detected an irregularity of international traffic by-pass.
He advised the police that some international calls were being diverted into a sim box and appear as if they are local calls generated from Telecel sim cards.
The police acted on the information, leading to Makumbe’s arrest.
Upon his arrest, Makumbe led police to a Potraz engineer’s office in Harare’s central business district, where the equipment he used to manipulate the system was found.
The machine was disconnected.
Harare magistrate Tendai Mahwe remanded Makumbe out of custody to September 9.