Bangladesh’s telecom regulator has fined the country’s four mobile operators a combined Tk8.21 crore after linking 8,380 SIM cards to illegal international call bypass operations, holding the carriers responsible for failing to prevent fraud on their own networks through mandatory monitoring systems.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) officials said the operators failed to effectively operate self-regulation and telecom fraud management systems required under their licences to detect and block SIMs used in unauthorised Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) activities.
According to BTRC, Robi Axiata will pay the largest penalty of Tk5.91 crore for 5,907 SIMs, followed by Banglalink with Tk1.86 crore for 1,859 SIMs. State-owned Teletalk was fined Tk45 lakh for 450 SIMs, while Grameenphone received Tk18.4 lakh for 184 SIMs.
Under BTRC guidelines, operators are fined Tk10,000 for each offending SIM.
The penalties stem from joint raids conducted by the BTRC and the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC) in Chattogram and Cumilla in April.
A BTRC official said the SIMs were verified before notices were issued. The operators have been given 10 working days from Thursday to pay the fines.
The regulator said the failures violated the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulation Act, the Cellular Mobile Services Guidelines and operators’ licence conditions.
VoIP is a legitimate technology for transmitting voice calls over the internet. The fraud occurs when unauthorised operators bypass licensed International Gateway (IGW) operators by routing overseas calls through SIM boxes loaded with local mobile SIM cards.
The calls are converted into local mobile calls, so recipients typically see a Bangladeshi mobile number instead of an international one. It enables fraudsters to evade international termination charges, taxes and regulatory fees, causing revenue losses to the government and licensed telecom operators.
Because the SIMs belong to licensed mobile operators, BTRC requires carriers to use automated fraud management systems to detect suspicious calling patterns, block compromised SIMs and prevent their continued misuse.
The regulator concluded those safeguards did not work effectively in the identified cases.
Robi disputed both the regulator’s findings and its enforcement process.
Sahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory officer of Robi, said the operator had not yet received any formal notice from the BTRC and that the figures reported publicly did not accurately reflect the actual situation.
He said the company’s preliminary review found that more than 95 per cent of the cited SIMs had already been barred from the network before the reported enforcement action.
Penalising the operator without giving it an opportunity to present its case would be inconsistent with the regulator’s own procedures, he said, adding that “Robi fully complies with BTRC rules and maintains strict controls against illegal VoIP activities.”
Banglalink also challenged the penalty, saying it had consistently worked with authorities to combat illegal VoIP call termination and that the overwhelming majority of the cited SIMs had already been detected and deactivated through its internal monitoring systems before any regulatory or law enforcement action.
Towhid Ahmed, head of corporate communications of Banglalink, said penalising the company despite those proactive measures undermines the principle of encouraging effective self-regulation and regulatory cooperation.
He said Banglalink expects the demand to be withdrawn after a fair review of the facts.
Grameenphone said it conducts customer registration through mandatory biometric verification and complies with all BTRC-prescribed self-regulation measures to prevent fraudulent VoIP use.
Sharfuddin Ahmed Chowdhury, head of communications at Grameenphone, said customers who misuse legally registered SIMs for illegal activities should also be held accountable. He added that discussions with the regulator are continuing.
