Businessmen get 5 years for illegal IP-telephony usage

Author: Mikhail Doroshevich

20/01/2003

In December, two Belarusian businessmen had their property seized and were sentenced to 5 years in prison for illegal IP-telephony usage.

Intercom, their company, accessed international telephone communications by illegally side-stepping Beltelecom, the Belarusian telecommunications monopoly.

Intercom's activities (1,198,101 connections) resulted in losses to Beltelecom totalling E119,305 (BYR379,560,000).

Without any law specific to telecommunications-based crime, the businessmen's activities resulted in severe punishment, where elsewhere the sentence would have been more lenient.

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