MTN South Africa and branches of law enforcement arrested key individuals involved in a One Time Pin (OTP) scam syndicate this past weekend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The arrests followed a successful search and seizure warrant on what was believed to be the syndicate’s headquarters in Eldorado Park, Soweto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks to various stakeholders and anonymous tip-offs, MTN said the Commercial Crimes Unit obtained search warrants for five properties believed to be the syndicate’s front businesses and call centres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MTN explained that most incidents involve criminals acting under the guise of the network’s call centre agents blocking fraudulent SIM swap requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using the sensitive information extracted from users during the call, such as OTPs, the perpetrators can then access mobile and banking applications to transfer funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is a major milestone for MTN and a victory for all our customers who are regularly being targeted by these criminals. OTP scams are among the leading scam tactics used by the criminals,” the mobile network said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“MTN would like to applaud the members of SAPS Crime Intelligence and Commercial Crimes unit for their unwavering support in ensuring that these criminals are brought to the law.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MTN pointed out that OTP scams are among the most prevalent types of fraud in the telecommunications industry, which is why the network has implemented several measures to mitigate the crime’s impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The network operator says it has told customers that it will not contact them from its call centre to block SIM swap requests and has urged them not to respond to unsolicited calls and requests for security details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A SIM swap occurs when a phone number is transferred to another SIM card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is typically required when customers lose their phone or want to port their number when switching to another service provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A phone number can be an important means of verifying someone’s identity or as a backup channel if they forget their login details for an online platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is sometimes also used as the one-time PIN channel for banking-related confirmations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its annual crime statistics report, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) found that the number of mobile banking fraud incidents involving SIM swaps had decreased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2022, 75% (7,605) of mobile banking fraud incidents involved SIM swaps, but this percentage decreased to 58% (5,709) in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, despite the decline in reported incidents, Sabric said mobile banking fraud remains a significant concern, emphasising the need for continued vigilance and proactive measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SIM swaps also need not necessarily lead to banking fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scammers can exploit a victim’s number to take over their WhatsApp account and execute a begging scam against their contacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This involves sending a message feigning some kind of emergency and begging for an urgent e-wallet transfer, often for thousands of rands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With control of a victim’s phone number, an attacker can also transfer their data and airtime, and potentially gain access to their mobile money wallets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MTN said customers can report incidents of fraud to Fraud@mtn.com or CRFraudqueries@mtn.com. There is also the option of calling 083135 and selecting the fraud desk option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MTN and branches of SAPS arrested key individuals involved in an OTP scam syndicate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341175,"featured_media":543883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[97817,42,37158,97818,1373,20901],"class_list":["post-570810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-commercial-crimes-unit","tag-mtn","tag-otp","tag-otp-scam","tag-saps-commercial-crime-unit","tag-scammers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570810"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":570840,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570810\/revisions\/570840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}