Fraud in the crypto industry in African continent has soared by 48 percent over the past year and Nigeria is worst hit according to report by CAJ News.
This is according to the Sumsub State of the Crypto Industry 2025 report, which indicates Nigeria recorded the highest rate of fraud across the sector, at 8,3 percent.
Thus, this percentage of verification attempts were flagged as fraudulent.
Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania all have fraud rates of 4,8 percent, with Cameroon (4,5 percent), Ethiopia (3,7 percent), Ghana (3,5 percent), Algeria (2,6 percent), Benin (2,6 percent) and Morocco (2,1 percent) recording significant rates.
The most popular fraud types are document forgery (affecting 31 percent of surveyed companies), phishing (20 percent) and money mulling (15 percent), followed by account takeover (14 percent) and forced verification (12percent).
Simsub, the cyber crime expert, believes this surge highlights the need for companies to adopt artificial intelligence (AI)-powered detection, biometrics and continuous monitoring to enhance security.
The report states that innovations like biometric checks, AI-backed automation and document-free verification have boosted crypto platform users’ on-boarding success rates to 93,39 percent and reduced verification time by 46 percent, overall improving customer on-boarding while reducing drop-off cases.
Hannes Bezuidenhout, Vice President of Business Development (Africa) at Sumsub, said Africa’s growing adoption of crypto provided its own challenges, but the company foresaw increasing demand and growing user expectations across the continent.
“So it’s crucial for VASPs operating in the region to implement secure verification systems and stay vigilant to fraud, while keeping an eye on evolving and new regulations concerning the crypto sector to avoid fines.”
VASP is an acronym for virtual asset service provider.
