The rising cases of carjacking cases in Kenya, have seen motorists and car owners lose their vehicles to robbers.
Most cars being stolen are fitted with car tracking systems yet when they get lost, the tracking companies are unable to locate the vehicle.
According to Fred Daudi, a car seller, this has led car owners to devise another creative way of outsmarting cons using cheap phones popularly known as Mulika Mwizi to track vehicles.
“There has been an increase of pro carjackers in the country who are not only able to locate car trackers but also to disable it,” he told Kenyans.co.ke
The use of phones for car tracking
Cheap phones have now become an alternative to car trackers with a charged phone hidden in the car.
“What people nowadays do is that they buy a cheap phone and insert an active sim card.
“The fully charged phone is then hidden inside the car and it acts as a secondary tracker,” Daudi explained.
On how that works, “In case your car is stolen, you contact your network and they track down your phone. Since your phone is hidden in the car, you also get your lost vehicle.”
Benefits
The phone is far much cheaper than a car tracker. A Mulika Mwizi phone in Kenya is sold at an average of Ksh1000 while the cheapest car tracker is Ksh10,000.
It is also hard for a carjacker to trace the hidden phone if you have secured it well.
Disadvantages
Daudi warns that car owners should not rely on the Mulika Mwizi alone for car tracking.
“The thieves can strip down the car and discover the hidden-phone or it might go off making it impossible for your network provider to track it down,” he warns.
He advises that Kenyans use cheap phones as complimentary car tracking devices.
