The Directorate of Criminal Investigations has sounded an alert to Kenyans of new scamming tricks fraudsters are employing to siphon thousands of money from individuals’ accounts.
The DCI through social media urged Kenyans to avoid online transactions in exchange for cash money.
The latest case of a similar situation where fraudsters ask the target to send them money via Mpesa in exchange for cash happened in Eldoret town.
According to the DCI, a victim was scammed Sh540,000 after he fell into their trap.
The victim told DCI that was approached by the suspects, where one of them, a lady, requested the victim to send her Sh2,000 to her Airtel line.
She then gave the victim cash as she had promised and then left, only for the victim to realize later that money had disappeared from bank accounts.
It was later revealed that the lady mastered the victim’s Mpesa pin number and went ahead and replaced his sim card before making a number of transactions, from his banks and Mpesa.
“The victim realized the amount missing from his bank account, with Ksh. 400,000 transferred to various phone numbers, & Ksh.140,000 to the suspect’s bank acc. It is suspected that the fraudsters had mastered the victim’s PIN as he made the transaction before swapping his line,” DCI tweeted.
Kenyans are now being urged to stay alert and avoid any kind of online translation with unknown individuals.
“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, & thereby innocently revealing their PIN & Phone Numbers which enable the fraudsters to swap their lines,” DCI added.
One suspect, Harun Kigera, was on Wednesday arrested in Molo, Nakuru County.
