November2, 2005:
Back in 2003, the British Foreign Office shipped a satellite phone to
their diplomats in Baghdad. But before the sat-phone could be delivered to the
people it was intended for, it was stolen. Somehow, the Foreign Office was not
informed that the phone was gone, and those who stole it proceeded to use it
heavily to make free calls all over the Middle East. When someone at the
Foreign Office finally discovered that the phone they had been paying the bills
for, was not being used by their people, service was cut off. But not
before the phone ran up usage fees of over $750,000. Hoping to make something
of the fiasco, the phone call records (which indicate many calls to Yemen and
Saudi Arabia) have apparently been turned over to MI6 (overseas intelligence,
the British CIA) to see if any of the parties called are, or were, involved in
terrorism, or anything else that MI6 might find of use.