Across Africa, the mobile phone has become more than a communication tool. It is a bank, a marketplace, a classroom, and, for millions, a bridge to opportunity. The continent’s digital progress has been remarkable, turning connectivity into a lifeline for inclusion, trade, and financial growth.

Yet as digital inclusion expands, so does its shadow economy. Mobile fraud is growing in both scale and sophistication, eroding the trust that underpins Africa’s mobile revolution. Fraudsters are evolving faster than the systems built to stop them, exploiting the same accessibility that once made mobile payments Africa’s greatest financial innovation.

The global cost of cybercrime is projected to exceed USD 15 trillion by 2029, and Africa is no exception. The continent’s fast-growing fintech and mobile ecosystems have become fertile ground for social engineering scams, SIM swaps, fake investment platforms, and identity theft — all designed to exploit human trust more than technology itself.

Recent data paints a stark picture of the scale and sophistication of the problem. According to INTERPOL’s 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report, the continent loses an estimated USD 3 billion each year to cybercrime. Gaps in legal cooperation and fragmented judicial frameworks leave Africa exposed to fast-evolving online threats. In a sweeping INTERPOL-coordinated operation, authorities across the continent arrested 1,209 cybercriminals targeting nearly 88,000 victims, recovered USD 97.4 million, and dismantled 11,432 malicious infrastructures. The operation underscores both the global reach of cybercrime and the urgent need for cross-border collaboration.

As Africa deepens its reliance on mobile technology, tackling fraud is no longer a security issue alone; it is a development priority that determines how confidently individuals, businesses, and governments can participate in the digital economy.

In this #TechTalkThursday article, we take a closer look at how mobile fraud is evolving across Africa, what makes the continent uniquely vulnerable, and what coordinated action is needed to safeguard its digital future. 

The Structural Cost of Convenience

Africa’s mobile economy thrives on speed and accessibility. In Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, mobile transactions now complete within seconds, creating seamless financial access for millions. For users, this efficiency is empowering. For criminals, it presents immediate opportunities to exploit the system.

The deeper cost, however, is systemic. Fraud undermines the reliability of the entire mobile ecosystem. Every successful scam increases operational burdens: fintechs and telecoms must invest heavily in monitoring, authentication, and dispute resolution, diverting resources from innovation and service expansion. These added costs are often passed on to consumers through higher fees or slower rollout of new products, creating digital friction in markets designed for speed.

Beyond operational strain, fraud erodes institutional trust. When digital platforms are repeatedly compromised, investor confidence wanes, regulatory oversight intensifies, and participation declines. In regions where mobile access substitutes for physical banking infrastructure, this decline represents not just individual loss but a barrier to broader financial inclusion.

In effect, the true cost of convenience is not the money lost in scams. It is the gradual weakening of efficiency, trust, and system-wide resilience — pillars on which Africa’s mobile transformation depends. 

“But the threats are not only technical. Today, we also face challenges like talent drain, lack of standards, and weak enforcement. In some countries, the standards do not even exist, or there are no frameworks specifically tailored to their context.”

-Adetokunbo Omotosho, CEO, Cybervergent

The Drivers Behind Africa’s Scam Economy

Africa’s growing scam economy sits at the crossroads of rapid innovation and uneven protection. As mobile and digital services expand, fraudsters are finding gaps to exploit, often before regulators, operators, and users can respond. 

One of the main drivers is the speed of digital innovation itself. Fintech solutions and mobile services are being launched faster than legal and regulatory frameworks can adapt. These grey zones create opportunities for fraudsters to act with speed and precision, often targeting the most vulnerable users first. 

Limited financial and digital literacy compounds the problem. Millions of first-time mobile users navigate new technologies without the knowledge to identify scams. In communities where trust often replaces verification, criminals exploit human instinct, manipulating fear and urgency to gain access to funds and data.

Infrastructure gaps also play a role. Many smaller fintechs and mobile operators lack the advanced fraud-detection systems used by established banks. Without real-time data sharing between telecoms, financial institutions, and regulators, fraudulent activity can move undetected across networks and borders.

The nature of fraud itself has evolved. Today, scams are increasingly psychological operations rather than purely technical breaches. Sophisticated social engineering exploits empathy, curiosity, and fear — and, with emerging tools like generative AI, fraudsters can create convincing fake messages or even clone voices to deceive users. 

Finally, Africa’s challenges are not isolated. Cross-border criminal networks are increasingly coordinated, reflecting a global ecosystem of fraud. INTERPOL’s 2024 Operation First Light uncovered thousands of arrests across more than sixty countries, highlighting how scams in Africa are often part of a much wider, international operation.

In sum, mobile fraud in Africa thrives where innovation outpaces protection, trust replaces verification, and systems operate in silos. Understanding these drivers is essential for any meaningful strategy to safeguard the continent’s digital future.

A Threat to Digital Inclusion

Fraud is no longer a side effect of digitalisation; it is one of its defining challenges. When users lose confidence in mobile platforms, adoption slows. Entrepreneurs hesitate to expand, and consumers return to cash-based systems. In effect, fraud undermines every effort to close the digital divide.

The promise of inclusion — to bring every African online, banked, and connected — depends not only on access to technology but on trust in technology. Without trust, connectivity cannot deliver empowerment.

This is the real cost of the scam economy: it weakens the social contract between innovation and inclusion. Every fraudulent SMS or call widens the gap between those ready to embrace digital life and those who retreat from it. 

“But the risk here is that if the money moves immediately, the fraud also almost happens immediately, right? Only in real time. And again, to say that if there is extensive fraud on the rail, there will not be trust in that rail, and you won’t drive digital adoption. So if you’re trying to have—whether it’s SMEs, whether it’s individuals—move to a digital form of payment, and you want it to be in your fast payment system where it’s convenient, super quick, and super easy, you have to mitigate the fraud and the cyber risk to maintain trust in that payment system.”

– Lyle Horsley, Head of the FinTech, South African Reserve Bank (SARB) 

How Africa Is Fighting Back

Despite the rising threat, Africa is not standing still. Across the continent, new models of defence are emerging — technical, regulatory, and educational.

Telecom operators are adopting proactive security measures. Safaricom has introduced biometric authentication and SIM-swap monitoring for M-Pesa. MTN and Airtel are integrating GSMA’s Open Gateway APIs, which allow banks to verify SIM changes in real time before approving transactions.

Fintechs are deploying machine learning to detect anomalies within seconds, flagging suspicious behaviour before money moves. Yet, as artificial intelligence strengthens defences, criminals are also using it to perfect deception, creating an endless race between innovation and manipulation.

Governments and regulators are tightening legal frameworks. The Malabo Convention on Cybersecurity, now ratified by several African nations, sets a continental standard for identity protection and cross-border cooperation.

Education campaigns are beginning to reshape user behaviour. Africa can learn from the UK’s “Take Five” initiativ e — a simple, consistent message that urges people to stop, think, and confirm before they click. In African contexts, this could take the form of vernacular-language SMS alerts, WhatsApp chatbots, or community awareness programs embedded in mobile operator networks.

A Shared Responsibility

Africa’s mobile revolution has unlocked extraordinary progress. It has redefined access to finance, reshaped industries, and empowered millions. But this progress is at risk if fraud continues unchecked. Reports describe fraud as an “ecosystem problem” — and it is. Telecoms, banks, fintechs, social media platforms, and governments each hold a piece of the puzzle. When they act in silos, fraud thrives. When they collaborate, fraud weakens.

Breaking the cycle will require a collective shift from reactive to predictive security: using data intelligence, AI, and shared insight to identify patterns before users are targeted. It also requires empathy — recognising that victims are not careless but often uninformed, and that every scam weakens public faith in digital systems.

To secure the continent’s digital future, the fight against mobile scams must be elevated from an industry issue to a development priority. Inclusion cannot flourish where fear persists.

As the GSMA aptly notes,  “Fraud in all its forms is a complex and illegal issue — it takes a village.” That village must include every stakeholder in Africa’s digital story: regulators, telcos, fintechs, educators, and above all, the users whose trust fuels this transformation.