Safaricom employee,JKUAT IT student arrested in SIM card fraud

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations( DCI) have arrested a Safaricom employee and a Jomo Kenyatta University of Advanced Technology student in the ongoing crackdown on SIM card swap fraud.

Maurice Musoti and Rian Obaga Nyagaka; a fourth-year IT student studying Bachelor of Science in Electronic Engineering are in police custody.

During the arrest, an Apple laptop, 2,160 unused Safaricom SIM cards, 44 used Safaricom SIM cards, 5 Till Agent numbers,  3 Mpesa Safaricom books, an internet booster router and 2 mobile phones; a blackberry and Samsung J7 were recovered.

The crackdown follows a public uproar over incidents of fraudulent SIM card swapping that have seen  a number of Kenyans lose money through mobile phone transactions.

In a statement to newsrooms, the director in charge of risk management at Safaricom, Nicholas Mulila warned subscribers to protect their personal information and never to share with any questionable callers purporting to be working for the company.

“Safaricom has noted growing concerns from the public on social engineering and theft of customer information leading to fraudulent SIM swaps,”read the statement in part.

“We wish to advise customers to report any suspected interference with their SIM Cards or theft of personal details to us by calling 100 or 200, or via a text message to 333 for assistance. Customers should also report these cases to law enforcing agencies with urgency’’ added the director.

“As a precautionary measure against social engineering, enabled by sharing of personal details, we would also like to remind our customers to safeguard information such as SIM and M-PESA PINs, dates of birth and national identity numbers.”

The Safaricom statement came a day after the Communication Authority released a statement urging Kenyans to be cautious so as to prevent any disclosure of personal information which could lead to sim swap fraud.