Kenya’s Cyber Fraud Problem Is Spreading Across Mobile Money, Crypto and Forex

Half of the cyber fraud cases reviewed by Kenya's cybercrime authorities involved mobile money. But in most of those cases, mobile money wasn't the fraud.

New figures from the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee (NC4) show that mobile money appeared as the payment method or destination in 51 of the 102 cyber fraud files reviewed between February and July 2026.

When NC4 categorized those cases at its 36th meeting, however, only 19 were classified as actual mobile money fraud.

The other 32 cases involved everything from investment and forex scams to crypto schemes and telecom-related fraud. They used mobile money because it was the easiest way to get money from victims.

The escalation

Seventy of the 102 cases landed between May and July, with July alone bringing 27, the busiest month on record for this stretch. Mobile money fraud led the categories at 19 cases (18.6%), followed by investment and forex schemes at 16 (15.7%) and crypto schemes at 12 (11.8%). Telecom or SIM-related indicators, meanwhile, showed up in 23 files, nearly a quarter of everything reviewed, even though actual SIM-swap fraud was only classified three times.

Stack the investment, forex and crypto numbers together and they beat mobile money fraud as a standalone category. The wallet isn't usually the scam. It's the delivery mechanism.

The pattern behind it

Investment and forex scams tend to start ordinary. A victim wires a deposit to an unregulated platform through the same app they use to pay a shopkeeper, and the fraud only surfaces later, when returns don't show up or withdrawals suddenly require another "fee." Crypto schemes work the same opening move: collect through familiar local rails, then push victims into transactions that are much harder to trace or reverse.

The telecom numbers tell a quieter story. Most of that 23-file overlap has nothing to do with swapped SIMs. It's phone numbers and telecom access being used to impersonate, hijack accounts and run social engineering that never touches a SIM card at all.

None of this needs a wallet to be broken. It just needs one to be trusted.

If it happens to you

1. Call your network operator right away to secure your line, then contact your bank or any linked financial provider to flag the incident and lock down the account.
2. Screenshot everything first: transaction confirmations, recipient details, phone numbers, chats. Grab it all before anything disappears.
3. File a formal report with police or the DCI and keep the Occurrence Book number.
4. Report the digital side to the National KE-CIRT/CC via their portal or incidents@ke-cirt.go.ke.
5. Check the operator's license before sending money to any investment or forex platform. The Capital Markets Authority keeps a public list.
6. Set a SIM PIN, though it won't stop a carrier-level SIM swap, and never share OTPs, authorisation codes or wallet PINs over the phone.