Skip to main content

Yes, I know, no cash does not mean no crime

xxx

Last summer brought Sweden’s first Swish mugging, when two thugs beat up a man and forced him to Swish them. The criminals were rapidly identified by their account.

From Imagining a Cashless World - The New Yorker

This has to be a candidate for the most stupid crime of the year. I realise it is up against some pretty stiff competition - I absolutely love Drew Curtis’ Fark and some of the crimes curated there are jaw-dropping but, I mean… come on.

 

xxx

The commission is on its third day of vetting traffic police officers in Mombasa where most have been found with huge M-Pesa transactions.

From Police officer on Sh45,000 salary moves Sh100m via Mpesa - Politics and policy

Who knew a life in public service could be so rewarding? 

xxx

In other cases, rogue officers open mobile money outlets where an alleged offender is given the agent’s number and told to withdraw bribe money from their accounts — instead of sending. One does not need to be anywhere near the agent’s physical location.

At the end of the day, the rogue officers reconcile their dirty proceeds by making entries in the catalogue, including filling fictitious personal details of those who “withdrew” cash. 

From M-Pesa the bribe, and other tricks traffic police use - Daily Nation

xxx

xxx

Junior officers in the police force were being used by senior police officers to get bribes from the public and send the money through specific M-Pesa accounts. It emerged during the vetting process that the senior officers had set a target for their juniors which they were supposed to meet daily.

From M-Pesa Transactions Led To The Sacking of The 63 Police Officers ▷ Tuko.co.ke

xxx

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

We could fix mobile security, you know. We don't, but we could

Earlier in the week I blogged about mobile banking security , and I said that in design terms it is best to assume that the internet is in the hands of your enemies. In case you think I was exaggerating… The thieves also provided “free” wireless connections in public places to secretly mine users’ personal information. From Gone in minutes: Chinese cybertheft gangs mine smartphones for bank card data | South China Morning Post Personally, I always use an SSL VPN when connected by wifi (even at home!) but I doubt that most people would ever go to this trouble or take the time to configure a VPN and such like. Anyway, the point is that the internet isn’t secure. And actually SMS isn’t much better, which is why it shouldn’t really be used for securing anything as important as home banking. The report also described how gangs stole mobile security codes – which banks automatically send to card holders’ registered mobile phones to verify online transactions – by using either a Trojan...