(Ecofin Agency) - Cellcom, operating under Orange after it was acquired in April 2018 by the French telecom giant, was sued by its competitor Lonestar Cell MTN on January 11, 2018.

Lonestar Cell MTN, a subsidiary of MTN Group, lodged a complaint against Cellcom, Avishai Marziano (Cellcom’s former CEO), Ran Polani (another Cellcom’s CEO) and Daniel Kaye (a hacker) at the Commercial Court of England & Wales for sabotage.

Lonestar Cell MTN’s complaint was lodged after the National Crime Agency (NCA) of England revealed that Daniel Kaye "had been hired to carry out the attacks by a senior employee at rival operator Cellcom and paid monthly".

The disclosure was made following the conviction, on January 11, 2019, of David Kaye to 32 months imprisonment by British officials for using a personalised DDoS to sabotage Lonestar Cell MTN’s infrastructures, in autumn 2016, and other targets.

The NCA estimates that "In November 2016, the traffic from Kaye’s botnet was so high in volume that it disabled internet access across Liberia. The attacks had a direct and significant impact on Lonestar’s ability to provide services to its customers, resulting in revenue loss of tens of millions in US dollars as customers left the network. Remedial action taken by Lonestar to prevent the attacks incurred costs of approximately 600,000 USD".