MTN South Africa, in collaboration with Crime Intelligence, Commercial Crimes and other Crime Prevention units of the South African Police Services (SAPS), have arrested key individuals believed to be involved in a one time PIN (OTP) scam syndicate.

The arrest followed a successful search and seizure warrant on properties believed to be headquarters of these OTP scam syndicates in Eldorado Park.

The successful raid is a result of a coordinated effort by various stakeholders including anonymous tip-offs.

As part of the investigation, MTN and the Commercial Crimes Unit obtained search warrants to raid five properties in Eldorado Park believed to be associated with front businesses, suppliers, call centres and operations of an OTP scam syndicate.

In most incidents, the criminals claim to be MTN call centre agents. Their modus operandi includes requesting the customer’s security details under the pretence that they were blocking the processing of a fraudulent SIM swap request that was being made on the subscriber’s number without their knowledge or authorisation.

The scammers then use the customer’s responses, which they obtained during the call, to access the mobile and/or banking applications to transfer funds illegally.

The OTP scam is one of the prevalent fraudulent tactics in the telecommunication industry. MTN has put several measures in place to mitigate the impact of OTP scams.  In addition, MTN has previously communicated to customers that it would not contact customers from its call centre to block the processing of a SIM swap request or to request for OTPs.

MTN urges all customers not to respond to unsolicited calls and requests for their security details from an unknown number.

Customers can report fraud or any suspicious activity on the following channels: