MTN Ghana has revealed that since the beginning of this year it has collaborated with the Cybercrime Unit at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service to arrest over 40 Mobile Money (MoMo) fraudsters in various parts of the country.

According to the telecom giant, it is very aware of the menace and has continued to not only collaborate with the security service but also enhance its infrastructure to fight the threat.

Speaking to the press after the 2020 Annual General Meeting of shareholders, the Head of Mobile Financial Services at MTN, Eli Hini said: “We do have a tracing mechanism that allows us to follow through on the fraud reports when we receive them.

“Most important is the time we receive them. As part of the customer education, we have advised that we should receive these reports on time. Customers can either send them via 1515 or 419. As a result of tracing, follow-ups and investigation, we have worked with the Ghana Police and made over 40 arrest.

“Those arrests have been because of our work, our intelligence and the support we have had with the police. Some have involved dawn-swoops in specific communities because of the intelligence we pick up when these issues arise. To a large extent, we have also been able to recover some of the funds that have been involved; and most of this has been related to the time of report and the details and additional information that we got,” he said.

Mr. Hini intimated that MTN will continue to invest in its systems and processes to ensure they are robust and ahead of the fraudsters. “As we speak, we are investing over US$2.5million to get additional solutions that will enhance our artificial intelligence to be able to further deal with these fraud issues before they happen.”

Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh, on his part assured customers that the company will not renege on its efforts to keep them far away from fraudsters – pointing to the roll-out of its fraud management project.

“We have spent a lot of our time and dedicated focus on fraud management. We have made significant progress this year in arrests, and we continue to tighten processes and invest in technology to enable us be able to do an even better job at being proactive and detecting the management of fraud.

“So, investment will continue; and you can be assured we have a dedicated project currently running that is only looking at fraud. We have a number of cross-functional team members on this project to make sure we put in the right attention and achieve the right impact on fraud management,” he added.

Board Chairman of the company, Dr. Ishmael Yamson, told shareholders that the company remains resolute in upholding high standards of corporate governance to drive sustainable growth, and will continue to embed a culture of ‘no tolerance for corruption’ through its robust conduct management framework. He added that MTN Ghana’s Board of Directors and its audit and risk committee are made up of experienced professionals providing appropriate oversight over governance structures.