{"id":54940,"date":"2025-07-18T18:45:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/airtel-rwanda-launches-ai-powered-system-to-curb-mobile-money-fraud\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T18:32:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:32:20","slug":"airtel-rwanda-launches-ai-powered-system-to-curb-mobile-money-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/airtel-rwanda-launches-ai-powered-system-to-curb-mobile-money-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Airtel Rwanda launches AI-powered system to curb mobile money fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Airtel Rwanda announced on Thursday, July 17, 2025, that whenever suspicious messages are detected, customers will receive them with a warning label advising caution.<\/p>\n<p>Airtel Rwanda\u2019s Managing Director, Emmanuel Hamez, said the system was launched in response to the growing number of cybercrimes, particularly mobile money fraud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is part of our commitment to enhancing safety and protecting our customers from internet-related crimes and financial fraud. In recent months, we\u2019ve seen a rise in mobile money theft, particularly through SMS scams. Today, we\u2019re pleased to announce that, as of two weeks ago, we\u2019ve implemented a system that flags potentially fraudulent SMS messages with a warning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The AI system analyses messages for characteristics common in scam texts, such as frequently used words by fraudsters, patterns of mass messaging, and other indicators.<\/p>\n<p>Once the AI detects suspicious activity, it flags the message with a warning before delivering it to the customer.<\/p>\n<p>If the sender\u2019s number continues to distribute fraudulent messages and is confirmed as suspicious, that number may be blocked.<\/p>\n<p>Gaaga Jean Claude, Managing Director of Airtel Money Rwanda, stated that Airtel worked closely with various government agencies to understand the nature of mobile money fraud, leading to the decision to develop and implement a proactive solution.<\/p>\n<p>He emphasised that using AI to combat cyber fraud is timely, given the growing reliance on digital systems and the evolving tactics of fraudsters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAI is an advanced technology that enables machines to mimic human intelligence, and it is widely used around the world. That\u2019s why we adopted it, to enhance the security of our customers\u2019 funds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Gaaga added that Airtel already had a system in place to help customers recover stolen money when reported, and it has proven effective. Statistics show that mobile money fraud incidents involving Airtel customers remain below 2% of total reported fraud cases nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>The new fraud detection system is free of charge and doesn\u2019t require customers to register, as it has been automatically activated for all Airtel users.<\/p>\n<p>Airtel Rwanda also plans to expand the warning system to detect fraud not only in SMS, but also in phone calls and social media messages used by scammers to steal money.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-91170 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/airtel_rwanda_neww.jpg\" alt=\"Airtel Rwanda\u2019s Managing Director, Emmanuel Hamez, said the system was launched in response to the growing number of cybercrimes, particularly mobile money fraud.\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-91169 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/airtel_rwanda_new.jpg\" alt=\"The MD noted that the AI system analyses messages for characteristics common in scam texts, such as frequently used words by fraudsters, patterns of mass messaging, and other indicators.\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-91171 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/2h6a31312h6a3131-42673.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-91168 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/airtel_rwanda.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Telecommunications company Airtel Rwanda has unveiled a new technology system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect fraudulent text messages used in mobile money scams involving impersonation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000091167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-54940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000091167,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/airtel_rwanda_new_ai_system.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/airtel_rwanda_new_ai_system.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/airtel_rwanda_new_ai_system.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/airtel_rwanda_new_ai_system.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/airtel_rwanda_new_ai_system.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/airtel_rwanda_new_ai_system.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000091167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54940"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=54940"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=54940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}