The government had included the issue of preventing online betting and fraud (scamming) in the list of one hundred governance reform measures issued on March 26.
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The Nepal Telecommunications Authority has shut down more than two hundred thousand websites and apps involved in online betting and illegal financial transactions.
The government had included the issue of preventing online betting and scams in its list of one hundred governance reform measures issued on March 26. Point 42 of the list states, ‘The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology will shut down betting apps and related websites within 24 hours.’
Accordingly, at that time, all betting websites operating in Nepal were shut down. Even after these websites were closed, new ones continue to appear under different names. Since the FIFA World Cup was held this year, the Authority has reported that another 223,568 such apps and websites have been shut down.
The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers also took special interest in this matter, anticipating that the use of such betting apps could increase during the World Cup, prompting the Authority to take swift action. The Authority has also formed a separate task force for this purpose.
According to Om Prakash Mahto, Assistant Director and Engineer at the Telecommunications Authority and a member of the task force, after the World Cup began, representatives of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were stationed at the Authority to help shut down such websites.
Assistant Director Mahto said that, in cooperation with ISPs, the URLs of such websites are blocked. According to him, since it is difficult to search for so many websites one by one, various authorized agencies and bodies identify such betting sites and websites involved in illegal financial transactions, and these are then shut down in cooperation with ISPs.
There is also the challenge that when one website is shut down, another new one keeps appearing. In such cases, as new ones emerge, they must be shut down as well. For this, a ‘threat intelligence tool’ is used for hunting. Separate personnel have also been assigned for this purpose, he said.
The Authority has also stated that if anyone becomes aware of such illegal websites, they can report them at the github.com/NTA-OPM link.
