Interpol reported on 6th July 2020 that the billion-dollar mobile money industry in Africa has become the target of organized crime. The report shares statistics which suggest the trend is only set to increase as the service is rolled out across the continent.
Since its emergence in Africa in 2007, the mobile money business, with M-Pesa as its most prominent example, has grown faster in the continent than anywhere else in the world. The surge in smartphones has made the world of digital payments open to large parts of the population. Interpol notes in its latest report that mobile money is increasingly being used by criminals when completing transactions for a variety of illegal activities.
