The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) is once again cautioning Kenyans to beware of online investment scams.

Owing to the recent outburst of a cryptocurrency scam that left many Kenyans counting losses, DCI says they have begun investigations to flash out the scammers.

“The DCI has noticed with concern the increase in reports of loss of hard-earned money by Kenyans to scammers. Scores are being lured to join online cryptocurrency investment platforms and end up losing their investments to the fraudsters,” read part of the statement.

Detectives are aware that such scams begin with short messages that read “Make Money Sitting At Home” followed by links that any interested party may click to join the scheme.

“With promises of high margins of profit as returns on investment, unsuspecting victims venture into the schemes and before they realize it, they’ve lost huge sums of money to scammers,” the investigative agency noted.

Apparently, this has led to numerous complaints on social media about losses, reports filed with the police and huge debts as most take up loans expecting to gain returns but things take a different twist.

Consequently, DCI urged Kenyans to verify authenticity of these online investment schemes through a check in with the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and the Communication Authority (CA) before injecting their hard earned money.

Additionally, Kenyans have been asked to report anyone or company scamming people through these online investment schemes.

Early last year, DCI raised concern over mobile phone scammers where conmen hack into people’s phones and send random messages to family and friends asking for money.

The investigative agency at the time urged Kenyans to beware and verify such money requests before falling prey to the scam.

“If your person sends that random text asking for pizza 🍕 money today, hit their dial to confirm you are sending money to the legit one,” read part of their statement.