Africa’s scam economy is becoming more organised, automated and sophisticated. What was once the occasional fraudulent SMS has evolved into smishing, vishing, identity theft, business impersonation, SIM-swap-enabled account takeovers, AI-generated identity documents and deepfake voice calls. I moderated a discussion recorded at the TARS 2026 Telecom Africa Revenue Assurance & Fraud Management Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, on the 13th May 2026 titled: Protecting the Customer: Scam Typologies, Operator Responsibilities & Fraud Awareness in Africa The panel brought together: Ann Khambo - Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management Manager, Airtel Money, Airtel KenyaOgochukwu (Ogo) Onwuzurike - Country Manager, Nigeria, TruecallerMieraf T. Birhane - Executive Head of Fraud Management, Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia The discussion examines how customer-facing fraud is changing across African telecom and mobile-money markets, why social engineering remains such an effective attack vector, and why operators can no longer regard themselves as neutral pipes when their networks, brands and identity systems are being exploited. Mieraf shares insights from Ethiopia’s evolving fraud landscape, including smishing, account takeover, subscription fraud and commission-related abuse. She also describes a striking case in which fraudsters used makeup and physical impersonation to attempt fraudulent SIM swaps—an incident detected because the agent involved had received practical fraud training. Ann explores identity theft, including situations where innocent customers may not know their photographs or personal information have been used to register SIM cards or commit fraud. She also explains why GSM and mobile-money fraud must be analyzed together using KYC, voice, SMS, location, SIM, device and transaction data. Ogo introduces the “machine era of spam and fraud.” According to the figures shared during the panel, Truecaller intercepted approximately 68 billion spam and fraud calls in 2025, compared with approximately 37.8 billion in 2021. She explains how AI and automation are helping fraudsters scale while excessive calls and messages from legitimate organisations are also eroding trust in phone-based communication. Key Themes: Smishing, vishing and social engineeringIdentity theft and fraudulent SIM registrationSIM-swap-enabled account takeoverBusiness impersonation and investment scamsReal-time detection, analytics and machine learningInternal fraud and insider riskAnti-fraud by designOperator responsibility and customer protectionCross-industry collaboration Time Stamps 00:00 Intro music 00:12 Africa’s scam operations have industrialised 04:09 What keeps fraud leaders awake at night? 04:44 Ethiopia’s evolving fraud landscape 08:43 Identity theft and the innocent customer 10:54 The human factor in customer-facing fraud 11:24 Why operators must take greater responsibility 13:43 The machine era of spam and fraud 18:05 AI call scanning and verified business communication 19:40 Smishing and sophisticated account takeover in Ethiopia 23:21 Data-driven controls for mobile-money fraud 24:05 Connecting GSM and mobile-money fraud 27:52 Business impersonation, investment scams and credibility engineering 30:49 Outro music The central takeaway is that customer-facing fraud is no longer only a fraud-management or revenue-assurance issue. It is a customer-experience, brand-trust, financial-inclusion and digital-economy issue. Protecting customers requires shared responsibility across telecom operators, mobile-money providers, banks, fintechs, platforms, regulators, agents, employees and customers.
