By: Olivia Nnorom
Farouq Dogondaji, Kano commander of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said that following the pattern of fraudulent activities, fraudsters are gravitating towards FinTech companies because of some observed vulnerabilities.
He stressed that the impetus with which these activities are carried out have become the commission’s concern.
Dogondaji said this on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, during a meeting with the zones’s representatives of telecommunications (MTN, Airtel, 9mobile) and financial technology companies, Fintechs (Opay Digital Services, Palmpay, Flutterwave and Kuda Microfinance).
The meeting was held to check the increasing incidence of fraudulent withdrawals and use of pre-registered SIM cards to open wallet accounts.
Musa Bashir Olalekan, the head of Cybercrime Section of the Kano command, revealed that about 90 percent of cases received by the command were on fraudulent withdrawals, usually traced to wallet accounts of cybercriminals.
He noted that the higher level of regulatory compliance by Deposit money banks as opposed to the poor KYC process by fintech companies is one of the many reasons fraudsters prefer to use them.
Speaking on the difficulty the commission experienced while trying to unmask these fraudsters, he said that most of the fraudsters used pre-registered SIM cards to carry out their activities.
Therefore, the commission tasked telecommunications and fintech operators with the responsibility to establish measures to detect and report suspicious transactions to law enforcement agencies.
The representative of these operators highlighted identity theft, phishing, and hacking as some of the loopholes that fraudsters exploit, and have shown their willingness to partner EFCC and other stakeholders to eradicate these loopholes and create a stricter financial system against cybercriminals.
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