Mobile money dominates Kenyan payments, which shapes both how fraud happens and how fast you must act. Fraud reporting almost everywhere involves four distinct routes with different powers, and using only one of them is the most common mistake. This guide sets out each and what it can actually do.

The order that matters

If money has already moved, the bank or payment provider comes first, before anything else. Only they can attempt to hold or recall funds, and that possibility decays by the hour. Everything else — police, regulators, consumer bodies — remains available tomorrow. The bank largely does not.

Where to report in Kenya

  • The Directorate of Criminal Investigations operates a cybercrime unit that takes reports of online fraud and account compromise.
  • Your mobile money provider and your bank both maintain fraud lines. For mobile money, reporting within minutes is the difference between a reversal and a loss.
  • The Central Bank of Kenya supervises banks and payment providers and handles escalated consumer complaints.
  • The Capital Markets Authority maintains registers of licensed investment providers and publishes warnings about unlicensed schemes.

What to have ready before you start

  • The amount, date and exact time of each payment.
  • The account number, wallet address or handle you paid, and the name it was held in.
  • How you were contacted, and the full message history exported rather than screenshotted.
  • Any website, advertisement or profile involved — capture it now, because it will be removed.
  • Your own identification documents, which most reporting routes require.

Keep the references

Every body you contact will issue a reference number. Keep them all in one document with the date and the name of anyone you spoke to. Cases move between institutions, and the next person you deal with will rarely have any of the history. The single most useful thing you can maintain is that one page.

A note on accuracy

Reporting routes, portal addresses and helpline numbers change. Everything above describes bodies and their functions rather than relying on a link that may be stale. Find the current contact route through the relevant government's own domain, and be cautious of search advertisements — fraudulent "support" numbers for banks and government services are themselves a common scam.

And afterwards

Be wary of anyone who contacts you offering to recover your money for a fee, particularly if they approach you rather than the other way round. Victim details circulate, and second-wave recovery fraud specifically targets people who have already lost money. Legitimate recovery work does not begin with an unsolicited message.