Mozambique: Over 500,000 telecom fraud attempts recorded in 2024 – Watch

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Over 500,000 telecom fraud attempts recorded in 2024 – Watch

1:34 CAT | 08 May 2025

Screen grab: Miramar

The National Institute of Communications of Mozambique (INCM) announced on Wednesday that it recorded over 500,000 cases of fraud and incidents in the country’s telecommunications sector last year.

“We are used to receiving a message every day: now you have made money (…), there are situations in which a fraud starts with operator ‘A’ but affects the subscriber of operator ‘B’,” INCM spokesperson Adilson Gomes explained on the sidelines of a workshop on security and resilience in communications in Maputo yesterday.

Gomes said that 66.3% of the fraud attempts last year were successful, demonstrating the urgent need for cooperation on remedies.

“There is work to be done, which is closely linked to collaboration and the constant reinforcement of the capacity to combat fraud. New types [of fraud] emerge every day, so there is need for speed and sophistication in response to these situations,” he also argued.

Another alarming facet Gomes highlighted is the prevalence of pirated devices.

“We have around 21 million active devices in telecommunications networks in Mozambique. Of these, 10.2 million are pirated, fraudulent, and have not gone through the approval process,” he stated.

According to the INCM, the resilience of telecommunications networks was also affected in 2024, mainly by cyclones, which caused service interruptions with an estimated cost impact of US$10.8 million.