Safaricom fires 118 staff over fraud, fourth annual rise
Safaricom dismissed 118 employees for fraud in the year to March, up from 113, and says a new SIM-swap system has cut fraudulent swaps by 65%.
The facts
- According to TechCabal, Safaricom fired 118 employees for fraud in the year to March, up from 113 the year before. It is the fourth year in a row the number has risen.
- The company also issued three disciplinary warnings and referred 14 cases to law enforcement. The misconduct included theft, falsified company records and unauthorised access to customer call records.
- Separately, Safaricom recovered KES 953 million ($7.4 million) in inflated agent commissions after its monitoring flagged irregular payments. TechCabal says the company has not tied this to the 118 dismissals.
- Safaricom says its SIM-swap system, which runs 18 automated checks before a line can be replaced, has cut fraudulent swaps by 65%. M-PESA handled KES 41.68 trillion ($323 billion) across 46.4 billion transactions in the same period.
Case notes · Danny's take
Why it matters
A rising dismissal count looks like a worsening problem. It can also mean the detection is getting better. Better monitoring finds what was always there. The number that matters is losses and successful attacks, not how many people got caught. For a network that holds identities, SIM registrations and payment flows for tens of millions of people, the biggest risk often sits inside the building. Not the outside hacker. The person with access.
For builders
If you run a fintech or agent network, treat staff and agent access as an attack surface. Safaricom's direction is clear: take sensitive decisions away from individuals and put them behind automated checks. Build logging and anomaly flags for commissions and account changes before you scale, not after.
Not financial advice. Do your own investigation.
This story was summarised with AI from TechCabal's reporting and checked against our editorial policy. Danny's take reflects his views. Disclaimer.
Danny Walter
Founder of Moon Republic, Volt Terminal and Moon Republic Academy. Author of The Market Is a Crime Scene and After the Applause.