Mozambique: Mobile phone operators claim huge losses due to fraud

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Mozambique: Mobile phone operators claim huge losses due to fraud

5:02 CAT | 12 May 2025

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: AIM

Mozambique’s three mobile phone operators claim that last year they lost 63 million meticais (about 985,000 US dollars at the current exchange rate) due to telecommunication frauds.

According to Monday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, this extraordinary figure comes in a report from the regulatory body, the Mozambique National Communications Institute (INCM), presented in Maputo on Thursday at a workshop on Security and Resilience in Communications.

The report claimed that over 500,000 cases of telecommunications fraud were recorded last year. There was a daily average of 1,500 attempted frauds – or 63 an hour. About two-thirds of these crimes were successful.

The largest number of frauds occurred in the northern province of Nampula, followed by Maputo city and province. These three provinces accounted for 87 per cent of the cases registered.

Among the most common frauds is the use of a “SIM Box”. This is a way of manipulating international calls so that they are charged as national calls, thus swindling the operators. The report also mentions “SIM swaps”, whereby SIM cards are fraudulently exchanged to gain access to the accounts of users. This could, in theory, affect any subscriber to the mobile phone services.

The report adds that over 200,000 SIM cards have been registered fraudulently, causing the operators losses of over six million meticais.

The chairperson of the INCM board, Helena Fernandes, said that the recent creation of the Telecommunications Security Incidents Response Team (ERST) is intended to strengthen the resilience of telecommunications infrastructures.

The intention, she said, is to make cyber security a question of national security, in line with the government’s agenda for digital transformation.

ERST is a multi-sector group, bringing together staff from the operators and from the INCM to coordinate activities, standardise procedures, and promote the sharing of information in the fight against fraud.

Source: AIM