{"id":103233,"date":"2015-11-06T10:02:48","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T08:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=103233"},"modified":"2015-11-06T13:42:36","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T11:42:36","slug":"massive-rica-sim-card-fraud-exposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/103233\/massive-rica-sim-card-fraud-exposed\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive Rica SIM card fraud exposed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A law designed to help law-enforcement agencies to track and monitor criminals through the creation of a cellphone database appears to be toothless\u201a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2015\/11\/06\/Crooks-Rica-havoc\" target=\"_blank\">The Times<\/a> newspaper reported.<\/p>\n<p>An investigation by The Times has found that Rica &#8211; the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act &#8211; is being flouted.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of cellphone SIM\u00a0cards registered fraudulently in terms of Rica are on street corners and in phone shops across the country.<\/p>\n<p>For as little R6\u201a and without proof of identity or residence\u201a The Times was able to buy MTN\u201a Vodacom and Cell C SIM\u00a0cards that had already been Rica-registered from a Johannesburg street trader.<\/p>\n<p>A second trader told the newspaper he had both registered and unregistered SIM\u00a0cards for sale.<\/p>\n<p>Forensic investigator Riana Smalberger identified several ways in which vendors can obtain Rica-compliant SIM\u00a0cards illegally:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Through the use of insiders at mobile service providers. &#8220;They are very well organised. They use false identity documents and false addresses.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Through access to a Rica machine, while only licensed cellphone providers should have them, an investigation in the Johannesburg CBD recovered a Rica machine in a mobile phone shop. Traders used it to activate cards using false IDs and addresses.<\/li>\n<li>Mobile operators used sub-contractors, who did not always exercise proper control over the machines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Source: RDM News Wire<\/em><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\"><strong>This article first appeared in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2015\/11\/06\/Crooks-Rica-havoc\" target=\"_blank\">The Times<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on South Africa<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/102815\/fnb-connect-hits-100000-active-mobile-sims\/\" target=\"_blank\">FNB Connect hits 100,000 active mobile SIMs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/101582\/how-much-money-south-africans-spend-on-their-mobile-phones\/\" target=\"_blank\">How much money South Africans spend on their mobile phones<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/95747\/south-africa-mobile-prices-under-investigation\/\" target=\"_blank\">South Africa mobile prices under investigation<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A law designed to help law-enforcement agencies to track and monitor criminals through the creation of a cellphone database appears to be toothless\u201a The Times newspaper reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,1849],"class_list":["post-103233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-rica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103233"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103243,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103233\/revisions\/103243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}