Friday, March 03, 2006
Phones stolen in Iraq used for sex chatlines
[via Virtually Islamic]
David Hencke, Westminster correspondentThursday March 2, 2006The Guardian
It certainly was not part of Britain's plans to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq. But the Foreign Office has been apparently paying for an adult sex chatline in a Baghdad street for 17 months without knowing it.
The Foreign Office has had to tell MPs that an investigation into how a diplomat lost two satellite phones in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism but more to do with a budding entrepreneur and a telephone porn network.
FO officials had already admitted that the lost phones had cost them £594,000 in unauthorised phone bills but it is now bracing itself for an extremely critical report from the Commons public accounts committee on how it came to pay phone bills, which at one stage hit £212,000 in one month, without asking questions.
Sir Michael Jay, permanent secretary at the FO, told MPs: "All the pattern of usage of these phones ... points to some kind of criminal activity ... It was almost as though they were taken and used as a kind of mobile phone booth at the end of the street where anybody could come along and use them.
"After that, they appear to have been used for a couple of scams based on what are known as personal numbers and premium numbers."
Sir Michael said the premium rate numbers were used for betting agencies or adult phone lines, and that one of the FO phones had been "on virtually full time with the person who is, as it were, making the call getting some benefit from it."
Sir Michael said initial inquiries had revealed a series of blunders. The phones were already activated when they were sent to Baghdad and they were not properly logged in - so no one realised at first that they had been stolen. None of the bills were initially challenged until people realised the phones had gone missing. The rules at all embassies have now been changed and no phone is sent abroad already activated for use.
Edward Leigh, chairman of the committee, told him: "In terms of this mobile phone being on permanently at the end of a street in Iraq, that gives a whole new meaning to winning hearts and minds in Iraq, but it is quite serious."
Austin Mitchell, Labour MP for Great Grimsby, whose phone had been swiped and used to dial a betting agency, asked if the FO had tried to get its money back.
Since the disclosure, Richard Bacon, Tory MP for Norfolk South, has made further inquiries: "It appears that they haven't been able to find the culprit or trace the phone. You would have thought having spent hundreds of millions of pounds setting up a sophisticated listening centre at GCHQ it would be very easy to trace a satellite phone and who was operating it in Iraq. But it doesn't appear anything was done. It just beggars belief that the FO kept paying the bills."
Sir Michael has promised to try to get the money back. But so far the only thing FO staff appeared to have done is to try to ring the premium rate number. Sir Michael told MPs they did not get a reply.
David Hencke, Westminster correspondentThursday March 2, 2006The Guardian
It certainly was not part of Britain's plans to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq. But the Foreign Office has been apparently paying for an adult sex chatline in a Baghdad street for 17 months without knowing it.
The Foreign Office has had to tell MPs that an investigation into how a diplomat lost two satellite phones in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism but more to do with a budding entrepreneur and a telephone porn network.
FO officials had already admitted that the lost phones had cost them £594,000 in unauthorised phone bills but it is now bracing itself for an extremely critical report from the Commons public accounts committee on how it came to pay phone bills, which at one stage hit £212,000 in one month, without asking questions.
Sir Michael Jay, permanent secretary at the FO, told MPs: "All the pattern of usage of these phones ... points to some kind of criminal activity ... It was almost as though they were taken and used as a kind of mobile phone booth at the end of the street where anybody could come along and use them.
"After that, they appear to have been used for a couple of scams based on what are known as personal numbers and premium numbers."
Sir Michael said the premium rate numbers were used for betting agencies or adult phone lines, and that one of the FO phones had been "on virtually full time with the person who is, as it were, making the call getting some benefit from it."
Sir Michael said initial inquiries had revealed a series of blunders. The phones were already activated when they were sent to Baghdad and they were not properly logged in - so no one realised at first that they had been stolen. None of the bills were initially challenged until people realised the phones had gone missing. The rules at all embassies have now been changed and no phone is sent abroad already activated for use.
Edward Leigh, chairman of the committee, told him: "In terms of this mobile phone being on permanently at the end of a street in Iraq, that gives a whole new meaning to winning hearts and minds in Iraq, but it is quite serious."
Austin Mitchell, Labour MP for Great Grimsby, whose phone had been swiped and used to dial a betting agency, asked if the FO had tried to get its money back.
Since the disclosure, Richard Bacon, Tory MP for Norfolk South, has made further inquiries: "It appears that they haven't been able to find the culprit or trace the phone. You would have thought having spent hundreds of millions of pounds setting up a sophisticated listening centre at GCHQ it would be very easy to trace a satellite phone and who was operating it in Iraq. But it doesn't appear anything was done. It just beggars belief that the FO kept paying the bills."
Sir Michael has promised to try to get the money back. But so far the only thing FO staff appeared to have done is to try to ring the premium rate number. Sir Michael told MPs they did not get a reply.
# posted by Unknown : Friday, March 03, 2006
