MTN Uganda loses billions to mobile money fraud involving employees
Ugandan news sources reported last week that African mobile giant, MTN, reportedly lost billions of Ugandan Shillings from its mobile money service in a fraud case involving the operator’s employees. Though information about the fraud and the investigations around it is only surfacing this week, the fraud itself is reported have occurred in 2011.
MTN employees working together with the fraudsters outside the company apparently exploited some holes in the verification system of the mobile money service to syphon money out of the company. The exact amount of the billions of shillings lost to the fraudsters has not been disclosed. At the current bank rate, a billion Ugandan Shillings is equivalent to about US $410,000.
MTN launched the mobile money transfer (MMT) service in Uganda in March 2009 in partnership with Fundamo, a startup that was eventually acquired by VISA last year. MTN launched in 1994 and operates in 21 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
This article was originally posted on Africa ICT & Telecom Network
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