People often wonder about how illegal robocalls from overseas wind up on the U.S. network and why it is so hard to track down the bad guys.
Well a new letter from the FCC to a carrier–RGTN USA Inc.– should help shed some light on the difficulty.
The letter– which can be found at RGTN USA, Inc. 2026 WL 2532190 ( Aug. 24., 2026 F.C.C.)– was sent to Leonardus Herps the company’s Chief Executive Officer and involves scam calls targeting IT employees of Blue-Grace Logistics LLC. The calls came from Blue-Grace 800 numbers. But when Blue-Grace contacted its 800 provider TeleVoIPs, LLC TeleVoIps confirmed it had not sent the traffic through.
That means the numbers were being spoofed. But by whom?
The Commission turned to the Industry Trace Back Group– the private consortium authorized by Congress to track illegal network activity step-by-step back to he source. The ITG was able to determine the calls came from GUGUcompany (GUGU). GUGU had sent the calls to a foreign operator known as SwissXperts who brought them onto the U.S. network through RGTN.
Get it?
GUGU is the bad guy foreign network that brought on the bad traffic. They sent it to SwissXperts who served as sort of a launderer. RGTN then allowed the traffic into the U.S.– presumably thinking it was valid since it would not have known the traffic was spoofed since it hopped through an intermediate carrier.
But the problems didn’t end there.
RGTN had also carried onto the U.S. network for TheSwissXperts calls that impersonated local and federal law enforcement as well as from Coinbase and Amazon–so it looks like RGTN may have been actively turning a blind eye here.
The FCC warns RGTN to get its act together or risk being terminated as a carrier, being removed from the robocall mitigation database and having all of its traffic shut off.
Heavy handed consequences– but seemingly appropriate given the conduct at issue here. And ultimately this is just a warning.
Take aways:
- Don’t let fraudulent traffic on to your network. Although it is hard to track this stuff down the FCC does have the tools to do so;
- If you’re serving as a gateway for foreign traffic from TheSwissXperts or GUGU– perhaps you should reconsider;
- If you’re accepting traffic from RGTN pay close attention here– they maybe subject to a shut down order soon;
- If you have questions about how to detect scam traffic or what constitutes proper KYC for carriers please reach out to Troutman Amin, LLP and we will help you navigate.
Speaking of navigation– have you seen the Dame navigate her way to partner in the latest edition of Deserve to Win? Check it out right now:
Chat soon.