A transnational phone scam known as Wangiri is on the rise in Kenya, warns the country’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI Kenya). Addressing these invisible syndicated scams is a global challenge and Kenya, with its robust telecommunications infrastructure, is a prime target.
Wangiri, a Japanese word meaning ‘one telephone ring and cut,’ sees criminals defrauding unwitting victims when they return a missed international call. The call is charged to the victim at a high cost, with the scammers claiming the fee.
Unlike other scams, such as the business email compromise, Wangiri uses uncomplicated technology and may target anyone with a SIM card connection. The scam exploits people’s innate curiosity to follow up on a missed international call. The country of origin of the call may vary, but could also tally with where the victim has a relative, applied for a job, or visited before.
Once the victim returns the call, the criminals use tactics to keep them on the line for as long as possible to incur higher charges. Some callers are put on hold, spoken to in a foreign language, told they’ve won a lottery or that they are being head-hunted for a job interview.
Almost all the phone numbers used are sourced from the deep web, making them hard to trace.
An engineer working with a telecommunications company in Kenya who requested anonymity explained how the scam works. Although the phone numbers take the prefix of telecommunications companies, almost all are sourced from the deep web, making them difficult to trace.
Once a person calls the number back, money is deducted instantly from their SIM-linked account and routed to the deep web. The scammers then cash out the money using sophisticated and rapidly evolving methods. Kenyan law enforcement agencies are still figuring out these techniques and how to disrupt and prevent the practice – something that is easier said than done.
Of Kenya’s 53 million population, the number of active mobile telephone subscribers as of March 2020 stood at over 55 million. This translates to a SIM card penetration of 116.1% – the highest proportion in East Africa and among the top 10 in Africa according to GSMA Intelligence. Kenya is thus a preferred target for Wangiri scammers.
A DCI Kenya officer who spoke to ENACT said many complaints had been received on the scam via Twitter and Facebook. However, DCI can only investigate these complaints when a case is logged at a police station. […]
