Mobile money fraud still rampant in Tanzania
What you need to know:
- TCRA quarterly report for the three months to December 2023, a total of 21,788 fraud incidences were recorded, compared to 12,603 cases reported in the same period in 2022
Dar es Salaam. As mobile money gains widespread acceptance and trust among users, it has also caught the attention of fraudsters seeking illicit gains.
Despite various efforts taken both by the Tanzania Communications Authority (TCRA) and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), mobile fraud is still a major challenge facing thousands of citizens.
According to the TCRA quarterly report for the three months to December 2023, a total of 21,788 fraud incidences were recorded, compared to 12,603 cases reported in the same period in 2022.
According to the regulator, between October and December, five leading regions recorded the most cases of SIM card fraud. They are Rukwa (with 7,666 cases reported), Morogoro (7,171 cases), Dar es Salaam (1,717 cases), Mbeya (1,549 cases), and Tabora (590 cases).
“The four regions of Rukwa, Morogoro, Dar es Salaam, and Mbeya had more than three-quarters (82 percent) of the total fraud attempts in the country,” the report says.
On the other hand, the regions of North Pemba with 108,600 SIM cards and South Pemba with 108,640 SIM card holders recorded less than ten fraud attempts.
Speaking about the efforts they are making to combat fraud, TCRA director general Dr Jabir Bakari said the decision to block all unverified SIM cards has started to bear fruit as fraud incidents continue to decrease.
The report shows that a total of 30,309 SIM cards were blocked in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to 34,848 SIM cards that were blocked in the third quarter of the same year.
The report further says fraud cases have dropped from two percent of the total number of SIM cards that were registered by September 2022 to 0.01 percent of total SIM cards registered by December 2023.
However, the hope of the people was to see the matter end due to the efforts that were announced by MNOs, TCRA, and the government.
"There are periods when these incidents decline. A whole month can pass without encountering fraudulent messages requesting you to send money. However, after some time, they resurface, and despite reporting, the scammers frequently change their contact numbers,” a resident of Sinza, Dar es Salaam, Mariam Andilo, told The Citizen sister paper Mwananchi.
The minister for Information, Communications and Information Technology, Nape Nnauye, said when responding to questions in Parliament in June last year that fraudulent activities continued because the number of SIM cards was higher than the number of Tanzanians.
Additional reports from Aurea Simtowe and Ephraim Bahemu
