An important internet fraud network in Zambia operating under the guise of a business center has been dismantled by the government. It was after a raid orchestrated by security forces.
The business, named Golden Top Support Services, had employed “unsuspecting” Zambians aged between 20 and 25 to use the SIM cards to engage “in deceptive conversations with unsuspecting mobile users across various platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, chat rooms and others, using scripted dialogues,” Mason Banda, Director General of the Drug Enforcement Commission said after the raid.
Investigations kicked off after authorities noticed a spike in the number of cyber-related fraud cases and many people complained about inexplicably losing money from their mobile phones or bank accounts.
Officers from the commission, police, the immigration department and the anti-terrorism unit swooped on a Chinese-run business in an upmarket suburb of Lusaka, arresting 77 people accused of having a hand in the fraud deals.
Authorities recovered over 13,000 local and foreign mobile phone SIM cards, two firearms and 78 rounds of ammunition during the raid. The locals were freed on bail.
A Zambian court on June 7, 2024 jailed 22 Chinese nationals over the cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams targeting Zambians and other people from Singapore, Peru and the United Arab Emirates.
The Magistrates Court in the capital, Lusaka, jailed them for periods ranging from 7 to 11 years.
They were part of the group of 77 people, the majority of them Zambians, arrested in April over what police described as a “sophisticated internet fraud syndicate.”
Cybersecurity analyst Ali Kingston Mwila said, “in the past we have seen criminals walking away freely after committing such or similar crimes.”
