Five million CFA franc fraud: Keur Massar's BR dismantles an identity theft network targeting Sonatel

The Keur Massar Research Brigade has dismantled a vast fraud network that caused a loss of five million CFA francs (5,000,000) to Orange Senegal and a customer, Mr. M. Sall. Two suspects, BC Ndione and F. Ndiaye, were arrested a few days apart and brought before the public prosecutor.

For several months, Sonatel's General Inspection Department had observed a surge in complaints from customers who were victims of irregular Subscriber Changes (SCs), followed by fraud on their Orange Money or bank accounts. The victims interviewed stated that they still possessed their identity documents and had never requested a subscriber change, having only noticed a loss of network service on their SIM cards before discovering the fraud. Faced with these repeated reports, Sonatel filed a complaint with the Keur Massar Investigation Brigade, accompanied by a report detailing information about the fraudsters.

The operating procedure

The investigation revealed that F. Ndiaye, who had previously worked for the victim, Mr. Sall, had obtained confidential information from his identity document to create a counterfeit National Identity Card. This forged document was used to illegally replace four SIM cards at the operator's points of sale. The resulting SIM cards were inserted into Itel brand mobile phones to intercept communications and security codes. The perpetrators then installed the CBAO Mobile application, reset the access codes, and proceeded to make a series of fund transfers to Orange Money and Wave accounts.

On July 31, 2026, in Keur Massar, one of the suspects obtained a SIM card and carried out a fraudulent transaction involving a transfer of 530,000 FCFA to his accomplice. On August 4, 2026, two withdrawals of one million FCFA each were made. A second fraudulent transaction took place on August 10, 2026.

The arrest of the first suspect

Thanks to technical investigations conducted on network traffic, call logs, and the geolocation of base transceiver stations (BTS), investigators were able to identify the main suspect. On August 29, 2026, the Keur Massar Research Brigade took BC Ndione, a 22-year-old student residing in Keur Massar, into custody.

He was arrested for conspiracy, identity theft, forgery and use of forged public documents, and fraud involving five million CFA francs. Under questioning, BC Ndione gave a full and detailed confession, admitting his active participation alongside his accomplice, F. Ndiaye. He specifically admitted to personally retrieving the SIM card on two occasions and carrying out the fraudulent transactions of July 31 and August 10, 2026, while attributing the two withdrawals of one million CFA francs each on August 4, 2026, to F. Ndiaye.

The arrest of the second suspect

Cited as a co-perpetrator by BC Ndione upon his arrest, F. Ndiaye was the subject of cross-checked technical investigations that led to his location in Dakar. On August 31, 2026, a search of the premises resulted in his arrest. F. Ndiaye, 27 years old, an accounting clerk, resides in Ouest Foire.

He was taken into custody on the same charges: criminal association, identity theft, forgery and use of forged public documents and fraud involving five million CFA francs to the detriment of Mr. Sall and Orange Senegal.

Immediately after his arrest, a search carried out at his home, in his presence, proved fruitful: investigators discovered the mobile phones that had housed the compromised chips, several SIM cards from different operators, as well as two fake identity cards bearing the victim's data, according to Seneweb sources.

All the confessions gathered, corroborated by the physical evidence gathered during the investigation—bank statements, connection logs, and technical analyses—formally established the involvement of the two individuals. At the conclusion of the investigation, BC Ndione and F. Ndiaye were brought before the public prosecutor, Saliou Dicko.