The suspects are Kelvin Kirui 21, Emmanuel Bett 19, Kipkoech Tanui ,27, Leteipa Isaiah 26, and Maxwell Bett 21.
Two of the suspects are form four leavers, one is a form three drop-out while two are class seven and class eight drop outs.
Narok County Commissioner George Natembeya said that the suspects were found with 12 mobile phones and 500 Safaricom sim cards.
Addressing journalists at Narok Police station in company of County Police Commander Thomas Ngeiywa and AP Commander Lawrence Owino, Natembeya said four of the suspects were nabbed in Narok town and one was in Mulot area of Narok West sub county.
He said many people have been reporting to the police that money are being lost through their phones and prompted the detectives to traced and arrested them.
The county commissioner said the suspects have been conning people in Eldoret, Mumias, Meru, Chuka and other regions by calling and asking them for their personal details including their Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) of the mobile lines and bank accounts.
“It is a cartel that operate in areas like quarry and they engage Kenyans in a friendly conversation like Safaricom customer care agents. Once they can get the details, they change the sim cards and deactivate the it, transfer the money to different mobile numbers and then they immediately withdraw money,” said Natembeya.
The administrator added that the fraudsters have been rampant in the region especially Mulot but when the police realized their hide outs they had to move to other regions to so that they can continue deeds.
The administrator said that the suspects will be later arraigned in court but the police will request the for more time so as to carry out more investigations on the conning cartel.
He requested the management of Safaricom to change the approach when they are calling their customers because the fraudsters are using the official Safaricom mobile number.
“There are some possibilities that some staffs from Safaricom might be colluding with the fraudsters because how comes these people have Safaricom official number. The company should come out strongly and save Kenyans from losing their moneys.”
Natembeya urged Kenyans to be wary of people calling and asking them for their personal details.
BY KIPLANG'AT KIRUI