Accra, Ghana MobileMoney Limited (MML), a subsidiary of MTN Ghana says its zero-tolerance policy for Electronic-Money (E-Money) fraud popularly known as Mobile Money (MoMo) fraud has been deepened across all chains of the MoMo industry.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MobileMoney Limited, Shaibu Haruna made this known during questions and answering time after the company’s recent historic signing of an agreement with the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) in the country.
The one-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which is subject to renewal seeks to build the capacity of the staff of EOCO to properly investigate the rising MoMo fraud cases in Ghana.
Through the partnership, MML and EOCO are expected to implement robust and stringent measures and intensify public education on MoMo fraud and other related issues.
“So, for us, it is a zero-tolerance policy that we have around fraud in our environment, and we want to stretch that through this collaboration to the general public as well”, Mr Haruna stated.
E-Money fraud which is referred to by experts in the industry as the unauthorised withdrawal of electronic money from the wallet of financial institutions, mobile money operators and individuals, is growing.
Over the years, MML which is the country’s MoMo market leader has done everything possible to address the growth in MoMo fraud by calling for multi-sectoral collaboration and interventions namely, consumer education, awareness creation and empowerment of individuals to protect themselves against fraud. The fraudulent activities are yet to abase.
Attempted and successful/loss PSP fraud values
For instance, the Bank of Ghana (BoG’s) latest data collated from the three sectors (banks, Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) fraud report 2022, showed that total loss value of fraud reported by PSPs which include MML, Vodafone Cash, and Airteltigo Money for 2022 amounted to GH¢27 million.
Out of which some recoveries were made, reducing the actual loss to approximately GH¢26 million. The value of loss in 2022 increased significantly as compared to a loss of GH¢12 million in 2021. This represents an increase of 117%, the report indicated.
Mobile money fraud registered 12,166 cases in the year 2022, as against 12,350 cases recorded in 2021, indicating a marginal decrease.
Internal incidents are dealt with strictly
The reduction of mobile money fraud registered cases in 2022 is attributed to the strict internal and external measures put in place by MML and the BoG, the industry regulator, and other industry stakeholders.
“In terms of internal incidents, you find it in every industry even in the banking sector as well as our environment. These are strictly dealt with, and we take them through the rigours of the law as required”, Mr Haruna emphasized.
Although he could not immediately disclose the number of internal staff involved in the incidents, the CEO of MML maintained the company has a “very strong policy around it”.
“Obviously anybody who is involved directly or indirectly in our system, we take them off our system and we deal with them as the law proscribed. And they must exit the business if found culpable ”.
Additionally, Mr Haruna said that from their end when these incidents are reported, they subject them to different treatment levels including working with the law-enforcement agencies to facilitate the investigations.
“Part of the work that we do is also provide the right level of intelligence around those perpetrating for law-enforcement to deliver on their mandate”.
Measures to check bad nuts so as to stamp out MoMo fraud
On measures to check bad nuts and to stamp out MoMo fraud activities within, he said: “In every environment that we find ourselves in, there are different stakeholders and different behaviours”.
A lot of the time, Mr Haruna said he hears things around the connivers of internal people within their environment.
“You can even stretch this internal discussion much broadly to also include even what happens at the MoMo agent level”.
Because most of the complaints that you typically get will be like, “I did a transaction of x value and somehow the fraudster knew the exact amount that had been deposited in my account and tried to use social re-engineering to get to me”.
He added that what they discovered from most of their investigations is also the fact that even within a network of the agent community that they have, some of them are also providing this information either deliberately or inadvertently by the criminals coming to those locations and picking on those information and using that as basis for re-engineering.
“So, there is a lot of education that is to happen across the MoMo chain and part of the work that we are going to do with this collaboration is also to strengthen the communication around fraud to make sure that all our users are also fraud aware anytime they are interacting with anybody”, Mr Haruna assured.
Training content for security agencies
Answering questions at the same event, the Executive Director of EOCO, CoP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah explained that out of the newly sealed collaboration, they are going to do training on MoMo fraud and other related crimes to sanitize digital financial space.
She noted that cyber related crimes are emerging crimes. “So, some of us are not too conversant with the way evidence is gathered. As part of the collaboration, MML is going to help us to develop training content that will be suitable for the kind of investigations that we have to conduct”.
And not only that you know that EOCO works with other law-enforcement institutions like the Ghana Police Service. So, in our training programmes, we also invite some of these law-enforcements to be part of them so that together we can build an investigative team that will be well-informed, well-knowledgeable, and well-positioned in such a way that some of these crimes wherever they occur irrespective of the town, even in my village they will be some investigators that will be there to help build evidence for successful prosecution”.
The Head of Legal and Prosecutions at EOCO, Abu Issah said they have so far prosecuted and secured conviction for three MoMo fraudsters who were engaged in bracing MoMo fraudulent activities in some parts of the country.
He added that mobile money fraud is happening on a daily basis, saying: “In terms of investigations, it looks like we are finding syndicates, groupings, associations, among others which are perpetrating the crime”.
So, we are widening our network. This collaboration is another tool in our toolbox to be able to do a lot more on the ground.
We know that once we work together, we sharpen our skills together. So, once we are giving them what we find on the ground you (MML) are also providing us what we need to be able to successfully investigate and prosecute and then convict the suspects”.
Abdulai Dapilah, Deputy Executive Director In-charge of Operations at EOCO said that with this partnership, EOCO would create a platform with MML so that they can share intelligence.
The core thing is intelligence sharing and we are beginning to create a common platform where we can share that intelligence, he added.
