Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) on Thursday, February 14, paraded five suspected criminals arrested for allegedly belonging to a criminal gang that has defrauded several customers of some local banks. They are all part of a racket of a fraudulent mobile banking network that involves siphoning money from the owner’s accounts to theirs, said Marie-Michelle Umuhoza, the RIB spokesperson. The suspects explained that to commit the crime, they use the tactic of swapping people’s sim cards and then call the bank pretending to be the owner and ask for a change of the PIN of the account which gives them full access to the account. They then move the money from the owner to their own accounts. To be able to change the PIN, the fraudsters use the ID number of the account holder, something the RIB’s spokesperson base on to urge for vigilance among the population. “I think there is a lesson to learn from this. We need to always guard our ID numbers. We do not know how these people gained access to victim’s ID numbers, but investigations are still ongoing”, says Umuhoza. As the investigations are still ongoing, the total amount of the stolen amount is not yet known, but RIB said that among the five male fraudsters were found with a total of over Rwf20m on their respective accounts. The money ranged from Rwf13 million, six million, two million to Rwf600,000. Umuhoza said that the arrests started after the investigations body got several claims from the clients of two local commercial banks. With the ever-growing tech crimes, authorities have in the recent past stepped up efforts to urge the public to always be cautious about potential scams, especially on mobile gadgets and the internet. This kind of fraud is punishable where on conviction, the culprit gets two to five years in jail and fines of running up to Rwf5 million.
