An illegal international phone business located in a cramped rooftop office within the Ministry of Information compound has been raided by investigators from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, officials said Sunday.
The office of the International Information Subscription Service, Inc, was operating under a 10-year contract signed by Minister of Information Minister Lu Laysreng. The contract had a start date of May 31, 1999.
The company billed itself as an Internet operator, but never established an Internet business, according to Lu Laysreng, who said he shut it down last March.
“Not a cent was made,” Lu Laysreng said.
But investigators from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications said a two-month investigation revealed a fully operational business in the rooftop office. Authorities raided the company Thursday.
The company was discovered by Ministry of Posts officials who were monitoring traffic by mobile phone users, according to investigators.
No one outside the Ministry of Information knew about the business, investigators said, even though the business required approval from the Council of Ministers, the CDC or the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
The phone center consisted of 28 cell phones wired into a network, a computer and a satellite dish that accepted incoming phone calls from the US before diverting them automatically to homes throughout Cambodia, investigators said.
The callers tapped into the system through phone cards sold in the US. The company, operated by three Taiwanese businessmen, was supposed to turn over more of its profits to the government every year, up to 40 percent by 2009, according to the contract.
A Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications official estimated the government lost $0.80 per minute for every phone call made through the illegal system.
Calls through the rooftop office would show up on a handphone as “Called 1,” or “xxxx,” rather than the legal networks of “007” or “001,” a Ministry of Posts investigator said.
Officials had warned the company several times it was in violation of its contract before shutting it down, Lu Laysreng said. Any profits were going to be used to help Agence Khmer de Presse, the government news agency, he said.
Lu Laysreng blamed lower-level officials at the Ministry of Information for colluding with the Taiwanese businessmen to continue operating after he ordered it closed.
Lu Laysreng said he suspected the illegal operation was only in business for one or two months, since it was not known to many people.
“If the contract is still valid, then we are wrong. But we are still wrong because we didn’t pay attention. We were negligent,” he said.
Prosecutor Khut Sopheang, deputy for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, said charges likely will be filed this week against the Taiwanese businessmen who ran the operation.
Their whereabouts are unknown. Khut Sopheang said border police have not yet been contacted to stop the men from leaving the country.
He was less certain about whether charges might be filed against Ministry of Information officials who knew should have known about the operation.
