SIM Boxing and Unpacking a Crime Syndicate, by Suleiman Bala Bakori

The introduction of linking National Identity Numbers (NIN) to SIM cards is one way the Federal Government has worked to tackle this criminal enterprise. With every SIM card in the country linked to a NIN, there is an identity linked to the owner of each line, and regulators now have visibility into ownership. That’s not all. There is also the ‘Max-4 Rule’, whereby a subscriber may not have more than four lines per network operator, linked to his NIN.

Boxes have a multitude of uses and the word ‘box’ lends itself to various contexts. For ‘Ajala Travellers’, the box is a necessity to store goods for their endless journeys. In literature it can be said idiomatically that ‘someone has been pushed into a corner’; another might say to solve a riddle, “think outside the box;” then there is the “Pandora’s box” that no one wants opened. “Boxing an ear” refers to a blow to the head, especially around the ears. For those who celebrate Christmas, ‘Boxing Day’, December 26, the second day of Christmas, is nothing to joke about: a day for opening gifts. So much for the box.

There is another type of box in the telecommunications world: the SIM box. Have you ever received an international call, but saw a local phone number coming in? That’s SIM boxing in action. Let me explain.

SIM boxing occurs when a person uses special equipment called a SIM box that contains tens to hundreds of SIM cards (from 32 to 96 to 512 and more SIM cards) to end international calls by bringing the call into the SIM box via the Internet. connections and regenerate the calls to the called party from one of the hundred SIM cards in the box. This way, the called party sees the local number of the SIM card from the SIM box, and not the original international number that is calling.

With SIM boxes, the syndicate charges international calling companies lower rates than regular Nigerian telecommunications companies because they do not have to pay the full cost of maintaining and operating a telephone network. In short, they bypass the normal route for terminating international calls to terminate international calls cheaply and make windfall profits.

Take for example a telecommunications company in Nigeria that normally charges international carriers 10 cents per minute to end an international call in Nigeria. However, by routing the call through a SIM boxing syndicate, the international telecommunications carrier pays only a fraction of the cost to the syndicate, for example 5 cents per minute, and does not have to pay the full 10 cents per minute. The SIM boxer terminates this call to the called subscriber at a rate of say N15 per minute, using one of the SIM cards in his SIM box. So the SIM boxer is making a killing out of the difference between the rate charged to the international airline and the rate paid to telecommunications operators, whose SIM they use in their SIM boxes, at the expense of our national security and mobile network operator revenues and quality. of our services to consumers.

In addition to the loss of revenue suffered by local mobile network operators due to the activities of these syndicates, networks face congestion around areas where illegal SIM boxing call routes take place. Due to the heavy traffic from the boxes, callers in the area are seeing more dropped calls, poor call quality and slower data speeds.

The introduction of linking National Identity Numbers (NIN) to SIM cards is one way the Federal Government has worked to tackle this criminal enterprise. With every SIM card in the country linked to a NIN, there is an identity linked to the owner of each line, and regulators now have visibility into ownership. That’s not all. There is also the ‘Max-4 Rule’, whereby a subscriber may not have more than four lines per network operator, linked to his NIN. With this rule, coupled with the NIN-SIM link, every telephone subscriber in Nigeria would not only be accurately identifiable but also limited to having only four telephone lines per subscriber.

To enforce this rule, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced on March 29 the deadline for mobile network operators to block all subscribers who had five lines or more and whose NIN failed the biometric matching verification test.

In recent weeks, sources within the NCC have confirmed cases where a single NIN was linked to more than 100,000 lines. Some NINs had more than 10,000 SIM cards associated with them, others had more than a thousand, and others had hundreds. Many have questioned the reports and wondered what a reasonable person would do with this number of rules? It’s fair to ask, because no right-thinking person – who doesn’t run a company – should own more than five SIM cards.

Given the applicable ‘Max 4 rule’ and the NIN-SIM linking policy, SIM boxers have been placed in a corner. The applications they use require tens to thousands of SIM cards and the need to remain anonymous. If this policy is properly and fully implemented, it will be the death knell for SIM boxing sellers.

But the regulator, NCC, must be quick and ready for the battle ahead. SIM boxing is a billion dollar criminal enterprise. They won’t go down without a fight. It’s like taking a bone out of a bulldog’s mouth that’s being chewed.

The battle seems to have already begun. Lawyer Olukoya Ogunbeje recently took the Federal Government, NCC and mobile network operators to court, arguing that blocking SIM cards not linked to NINs violates his basic human rights and has cost him loss of business opportunities. Anyone who has Nigeria’s interests at heart generally supports this policy. There is then no point in seeing a so-called activist lawyer taking on such a case that is clearly against the public interest – unless this is the Haka cry of SIM boxers.

A very interesting observation about his case is that it is not even a collective action, but an individual case. It then begs the question of who is funding Barr. Olukoya Ogungbeje? What is his interest in combating this policy that rewards the activities of a criminal enterprise? Is he funded by interests in the SIM boxing world? Time would tell. But in the meantime, NCC must move forward without fear or intimidation and rid the Augean stable of SIM ownership in Nigeria.

Suleiman Bala Bakori is a researcher and writes from the FCT.