According to a press release, the National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM) says its attention has been drawn to a series of criminal activities carried out by scammers using the 232-21 code to perpetrate their criminal activities.
The release adds that the Commission is informed that certain persons in the USA have been receiving scam calls purportedly coming from Sierra Leone, and that the said criminal syndicate known as ‘WANGIRI’ or ‘One Ring’ has been reported through various news channels and tabloids abroad. ‘This has the propensity of affecting the country’s image internationally,’ the NATCOM release adds.
The release went on to state: Being deeply concerned by this development, the Commission wishes to assure the Government and people of the USA and other relevant bodies that it has already engaged the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for it to expunge the said 232-21 national destination code (NDC) from its database, and that on the domestic front, the Commission and law enforcement agencies have commenced immediate investigations not only into this particular matter, but other reports by persons in Sierra Leone of similar international scam calls received by them with 242, 243 country codes.
In the meantime, mobile phone subscribers are hereby admonished not to call back strange numbers, as the Commission fully assures all of its commitment to get at the bottom of these issues and addressing them accordingly.
