This archive report was first published on 3 September 2019.
September 3, 2019, marked the beginning of a new era of caution for Safaricom users in Kenya. A recent trend of fraudulence has emerged, where individuals' identification cards are being used to register multiple SIM cards without their knowledge or consent.
According to a Facebook post by Wahome Thuku, a close friend of his was arrested by the DCI and charged with fraud after numbers registered using his name and ID numbers were used to defraud people over a million Kenyan shillings in a period of one year.
As part of the well-orchestrated plan, witnesses are brought in to testify under oath, claiming to know the victim personally and have sent them money, leaving the victim to face financial losses and CRB listings.
Recently, Lorna Gikabu, a Safaricom subscriber, discovered that her Identification card had been used to register 13 SIM cards, with most of them in use by persons unknown to her. The lines were registered without her knowledge and consent, and most of them had borrowed on mobi loans like Branch and PesaHero, resulting in her being adversely listed on CRB.
The question of how users' confidential information ends up in the hands of fraud perpetrators remains unanswered. Safaricom users are advised to make an effort to inquire about the SIM cards registered with their Identification details before they find themselves entangled in cases of fraud.
