Three of Kazakhstan's largest mobile operators — Beeline, Kcell and Tele2 — have been held administratively liable and fined for excessively strong cellular signals at correctional facilities in the Kostanay region, the website infohub.kz reports.
According to the regional prosecutor's office, prosecutors conducted the inspection together with radio frequency specialists and prison officials. Specialists measured mobile signal strength at the prisons. The results showed that at three correctional facilities, signals from Beeline, Kcell and Tele2/Altel were excessively strong and significantly exceeded permissible norms.
Under the law, mobile operators are required to configure their towers so that signals at prisons are jammed or minimized. However, the companies ignored this requirement. As a result, after the prosecutor's intervention, all three operators were held administratively liable and fined.
The supervisory authority emphasized that such signal availability leads to real crimes. Inmates freely using smartphones have been repeatedly identified in the prisons.
The prosecutor's office said that one inmate managed to pull off a phone scam right from his cell, defrauding people of 4 million tenge. His phone was confiscated, and he will face criminal charges for the new crime.
Earlier, Kursiv wrote that phone fraud using the name of the UAPF has become more frequent in the country. Scammers call people posing as fund employees and claim they have found several years of service not included in the pension calculation. The fraudsters provide the real address of a UAPF branch and offer to book an electronic queue.