Pauline Mwalimu has narrated how she lost 105k shillings to fraudsters, who tricked her into sending money over the phone to give them cash.
A teacher, she got this job that pays her six thousand shillings a month which she admits fulfills her and her son’s needs.
Unfortunately, Pauline has fallen into the hands of a group that targets agents of M-pesa stores and defrauds them.
Calling back, Pauline remembers being followed by a customer who she recognized as Ben from Kitui County asking for a bag left behind. before confronting her with the bag, Ben called the phone number that Pauline sent him from the M-pesa phone.
Pauline says that;
“A completely foreign woman entered the store carrying a shopping bag the other day and said she had been directed to the store by Ben and asked me to hold the bag for her to do some business.”
Later, a woman identified as Faith entered the store and asked for the left bag. But before handing her the bag, she is advised to participate in the business of selling yarn. Faith and her colleague convinced Pauline to participate in the business claiming that it is very profitable.
If the two steal Pauline’s secret, she would get a profit of up to 3,000 shillings for one thread and from then on she did not know what happened, because what she remembers is that she handed them a sum of money.
“The only thing I remember, is that I sent the fraudsters all the money I had over the phone. I went into a series of borrowing more money from friends and businessmen, which in total I gave the fraudsters 105,000 shillings.”
Her employer and friends lent her money, they ended up suspecting her of conspiring with the fraudsters.
Joseph, a teacher, made a report at the Matuu center but found that the police took time to arrest the fraudsters.
Which led them to start donating money to return what was lost where they managed to collect only 31,000 thousand shillings.
Internet security expert Allan Lwala explained that Pauline may have been under the influence of drugs during the incident. He noted that the fraudsters used scopolamine on his face or through physical contact.
Allan explained that sometimes the drugs can be harmful to health or cause death, saying that so far no methods have been developed to deal with this trick.
This comes after a few months ago where a similar case involving a Roots Party politician was reported to have been defrauded of more than 100,000 shillings.
