Dubai: Police say they have arrested three men for offering illegal international calls using the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.
Police said the three men from Bur Dubai, Satwa and Hor Al Anz, were offering illegal international calls using IP technology. The suspects allegedly charged 50 fils per minute for the calls and used their apartments to sell the service.
Lieutenant Colonel Salim Al Rumaithi, Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigation General Department of Dubai Police, said police received a tip-off last month about three suspects allegedly offering international phone calls at a cheap price.
"These types of crimes are very serious, and according to the tip-off the department organised a team to investigate the case," said Major Salah Bu Aseeba, Director of the Department of Economic Crimes at Dubai Police.
On the same day the tip-off was received, police said they organised three teams to raid the three locations and arrest the suspects. A.B. was picked up from the Hamdan area, M.A. from Hor Al Anz and M.A. from Satwa, police said. A search of their apartments yielded multiple mobile phones and wireless communication equipment and computers.
All three confessed to illegally operating voice-over internet protocol channels and were handed to the authorities for further procedures, police said.
Brigadier Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, Director General of the General Department for Criminal Investigation, said that these types of crimes caused a lot of damage to telecom providers, intellectual copyright, and the country's economy.
