A 28-year-old woman was arraigned in court on October 12, over Ksh 453,000 online dating scam.
The suspect, Mary Kioko is allegedly part of a grand scheme used to lure men through an online dating site. The gang is believed to extort money from the said victims.
On October 3, the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) detectives announced the arrest of Mary Kioko and one of her accomplices.
This ensued from a previous case in which the suspected gang lured an Indian man to Muimara estate in Imara Daima, Nairobi through an online dating site.
"On the 22nd of September 2020, the lady suspect; Mary Mukii Kioko, met the victim at the dating site before luring him to a house in the said estate, where on arrival three men joined them in the room," reads an excerpt from the DCI statement.
The foreigner allegedly lost Ksh453,000 as the suspects coerced him to reveal his ATM and mobile money passcodes and later dumped him along Mombasa Road.
Kioko was charged with robbery with violence.
Many online users have found themselves on the wrong end in terms of scams and fraudsters in the digital space.
According to a report by research firm B2B International and Kaspersky Lab in August 2017, 55% of people that date online have experienced some form of threat or problem. This data stems from IT security incidents to meeting up with imposters.
The findings also revealed a worrying number of online dating users who are placing sensitive information, through their profiles, into the public domain. This could potentially lead them to harm and dangerous implications if the information was to fall into the wrong hands.
Furthermore, the report showed that one-in-ten online dating users have shared publicly either their full home address, details about their work/ trade secrets, or personal details about their family.
The cybersecurity firm advocated for online users to always exercise personal safety first by taking the utmost caution when dealing with unfamiliar people on online dating sites.
