An employee of Safaricom and a university student have been arrested in connection with cases of SIM cards fraud.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) identified the two suspects, who were arrested on Friday, as Maurice Musoti, an employee of the telco company and Rian Obaga Nyagaka, an engineering student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).

Detectives recovered several items from the suspects including an Apple laptop, 2,160 unused Safaricom SIM cards, 44 used Safaricom SIM cards, 5 till agent numbers, 3 M-Pesa booklets, internet booster router, two mobile phones, a blackberry and Samsung J7 and an internet booster router.

The arrests followed a warning from Communications Authority to Kenyans against sharing personal identification numbers with strangers pretending to help them.

The mobile service provider has also cautioned its subscribers against responding to calls by people purporting to be from Safaricom staff if the caller ID is any other number besides its official number: 0722 000 000.

Fraudsters

“Personally identifiable information refers to any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as mobile money pin, national identity number, bank account pin, password, date of birth among others,” explained Wangusi Francis, Director General Communications Authority.

According to the authority, the fraudsters often pretend to be employees of a mobile network operator and lure unsuspecting mobile subscriber to share their personally identifiable information such as national ID number, mobile money PIN, or SIM card PIN.

After obtaining the information the fraudsters then go ahead to swap the sim card thereby gaining access to all sim services including mobile money transfer, mobile and internet banking, voice calls, SMS, data services among others.

Customers have also been advised to report such cases to the police as soon as they occur.

By Hillary Kimuyu

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