Six major telecommunications companies yesterday reached an agreement with the Criminal Investigation Bureau to discontinue services that commonly help criminals stay a step ahead of the law.
The decision was made during a coordination meeting held by DPP Legislator Chou Ching-yu (
Criminal gangs often issue false "scratch and win" lotteries. When the victims discover they have won, they are instructed to dial a phone number on the ticket to claim their prize. The victims are then asked to remit money into certain bank accounts to serve as a "deposit" or "tax." In the end, the victims never get their "prize."
The head of the Telecommunications Police Corps, Huang Wan-fa (黃萬發), said it is extremely difficult to uncover the identities and whereabouts of the criminals because such phone calls are forwarded from number to another, and the communication links often terminate in China's coastal areas. Moreover, the phone numbers and bank accounts were applied and opened with forged IDs.
Meeting attendees included officials from related government departments and representatives of five telecommunications companies, including: Chunghwa Telecom (
Police have long been asking telecommunications companies to cut off services of crime-related telephone accounts in order to prevent further victimization, but the companies always refused the requests, saying they infringed upon communications freedom.
"The reasons proscribed in the current telecommunications law [for cutting off service] do not include the cases in which telecommunications are used as criminal instruments," said Huang.
But after a series of negotiations, the six companies and the Directorate General of Telecommunications, Ministry of Transportation and Communications, yesterday reached a consensus.
"As long as the law enforcement agencies forward documents indicating the criminal behavior to us, we will cooperate and discontinue service of the accounts," representatives of six companies said.
But they also stressed that the ultimate solution is to amend the current telecommunications law.
Legislator Chou and police representatives expressed appreciation for the companies' cooperation.
Chou said she has long received complaints by victims of the lottery scam and estimated that criminals have bilked the public out of more than NT$1billion.
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