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Telecom operator Grameenphone has been fined $18,400 (৳1.84 million) after regulators found fresh evidence of its involvement in illegal VoIP operations.
The penalty was imposed by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), which has ordered the company to pay the fine within 10 days.
In its notice, the regulator said Grameenphone failed to effectively implement mandatory self-regulatory measures and telecom fraud management systems to prevent unauthorized international calls on its network.
This, it noted, constitutes violations of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act, cellular service guidelines, and multiple licensing conditions.
The action follows recent law enforcement operations in Cumilla and Chattogram, where authorities seized a total of 184 SIM cards linked to illegal VoIP activities. Based on BTRC rules, a fine of ৳10,000 per illegal SIM was applied, leading to the total penalty.
This is not the first such offense. In 2023, authorities recovered 1,640 SIM cards tied to similar activities involving the operator. A year earlier, in 2022, Grameenphone was fined over $99,000 (৳9.96 million) for comparable violations.
The company has faced repeated scrutiny over illegal VoIP operations, which are blamed for causing significant revenue losses to the government. In an earlier case during a caretaker administration, the operator was fined ৳2 billion for similar offenses.