A recent report by Times360 Malawi reveals a puzzling paradox in Malawi’s fight against mobile money fraud. Citing the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), the report said fraud cases in Malawi fell by 63.6% between 2024 and 2025, from 4,883 to 1,779. On the surface, this appears to be a success attributable to awareness campaigns, tighter regulation, and cooperation between service providers and law enforcement.
MACRA’s Public Relations Officer, Limbani Nsapato, confirmed this trend. Malawi Police Service spokesperson Lael Chimtembo also highlighted low awareness, digital illiteracy, and security gaps (despite a decrease in reported scams) as key drivers. Beyond arrests, Chimtembo stressed the need for stronger user education and system safeguards.
However, the reality is more complex than that. In particular, the total value lost to fraud tells a different story. According to the report, the amount lost to fraud rose from K200.2 million in 2024 to K256.5 million in 2025. This suggests that while scams may be fewer in number, they are far more damaging. A simple calculation shows that the average reported loss per case has jumped from roughly K41,000 in 2024 to about K144,000 in 2025. This is more than three times higher, indicating that the scams that are still succeeding are perhaps more targeted, sophisticated, and financially devastating for victims.
What do these numbers mean?
There are several possible reasons. First, as basic scams, such as generic phishing text messages, fake prize calls, and crude impersonation attempts, become easier to recognise, fraudsters are adapting. It would appear fraudsters are focusing on fewer victims transacting larger sums, such as small business owners, high-volume traders, and individuals receiving regular transfers. These scams rely heavily on what is called social engineering.
In cybersecurity, social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or providing confidential information, bypassing technical security controls. Instead of hacking software, attackers exploit human emotions such as trust, fear, and urgency. These tactics include impersonating mobile money agents or authority figures, creating a sense of urgency, and manipulating trust. Most of us have received these fraudulent calls. In the past, prisoners at Zomba Maximum Prison have been implicated in these scams.
The second possible reason is that reporting patterns also play a role. Many Malawians may no longer report fraud cases when they incur small losses because the time, effort, and emotional cost outweigh the value lost. This way, minor scams disappear from the statistics, creating a false sense of improvement, while major losses, such as wiping out savings, business capital, or school fees, remain highly visible.
Public institutions increasingly use mobile money platforms to deliver social welfare cash transfers and humanitarian assistance, as well as to pay for services such as school fees and MANEB examination fees. These predictable flows of funds make individuals prime targets, and a single successful scam can capture an entire month’s support or the cost of missing exams or education altogether. This transforms financial loss into a social justice issue. Fraud becomes a mechanism through which resources intended for the vulnerable and for education are diverted away from those who need them most.
What is to be done?
MACRA would benefit from conducting a comprehensive study to understand this paradox beyond the reported figures. This would inform the best way to tackle the problem. Nonetheless, it is crucial to acknowledge that digital illiteracy and lack of awareness are not merely individual shortcomings, as is commonly believed. These issues reflect broader inequalities in access to education, information, and institutional support. Mobile money systems have evolved from optional tools into essential means of survival. When digital platforms become gateways to basic human needs, the associated risks are woven into everyday life, directly affecting people’s human rights.
Thus, responses require a human rights approach. A human rights approach emphasises safe access to digital financial services as part of the right to social and economic participation. This means responses should go beyond the usual policing and surveillance technologies (sim card and gadget registration, etc.). Institutions must take responsibility for system safety, accountability, and accessibility, which include user-centred dispute-resolution mechanisms that reduce reporting fatigue, built-in system safeguards such as transaction limits and verification steps, and digital literacy initiatives framed as empowerment rather than blame. The usual community workshops and radio programmes can expose scams, especially the psychological tactics fraudsters employ.
Fraud monitoring during transfer periods, rapid-response lines for beneficiaries, and partnerships with civil society can help ensure that those relying on social protection are not disproportionately harmed. Currently, civil society is on the margins of these efforts, but they must be at the centre, as they are critical to effective responses.
As it were, digital finance is becoming essential to everyday survival, and fraud evolves to follow the money. While fewer people may fall for scams, those who do are losing more, and their losses are increasingly intersecting with systems designed to protect the vulnerable. The challenge ahead is to ensure that digital financial systems expand people’s freedoms without quietly shifting new risks onto those least able to bear them.
Spirit of Umunthu 