Man arrested for stealing Ksh.540,000 in SIM swap fraud

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) in Molo, Nakuru County on Thursday arrested a suspected fraudster who had allegedly stolen Ksh.540,000 from the bank account of an unsuspecting victim.

According to the DCI, the suspect, Harun Kigera, together with others stole the said amount after swapping the victim’s Airtel Sim card when they were having dinner in Eldoret.

“While having dinner at a hotel in Eldoret, two men and a lady joined the victim’s table and after a moment, the lady requested the victim to send her Ksh. 2,000 in her Airtel line as she gave him the same amount in cash. The group  then left shortly” said DCI in a tweet.

It was not until the next morning when the victim realised that Ksh.540,000 was missing from his bank account.

Of the said amount, Ksh. 400,000 had been transferred to various phone numbers while Ksh.140,000 to the suspect’s bank account.

According to DCI, the suspects  had mastered the victim’s PIN as he made the transaction before swapping his line.

Members of the public have now been urged to be careful and avoid being duped when doing online transactions for cash.

“The DCI takes this opportunity to warn members of the public against this kind of fraud where people are being duped into online transactions in exchange for cash money, and thereby innocently revealing their pin and phone numbers which enable the fraudsters to swap their lines before cleaning up all their bank, Mpesa, Mshwari and Airtel Money savings. Be warned and stay safe,” warned the DCI.