Letter from Africa: The lure of the get-rich-quick scam in Kenya
Economic desperation makes the promise of easy money hard to resist.
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Economic desperation makes the promise of easy money hard to resist.
Over the years, Kenyans have lost millions in pyramid schemes that have been promising to make them overnight millionaires.
The shocking rise of cryptocurrencies this past year triggered a wave of media attention on this new form of money as an alternative investment vehicle.
The lure of the get-rich-quick scam in Kenya © Getty Images False promises about investing in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is one way people have been scammed In our series of letters from African journalists, Kenyan broadcaster Waihiga Mwaura writes about cryptocurrency scams, including one that traded on his name to fleece investors. © BBC I got a call from a doctor I did not know, asking whether I had interviewed a Kenyan billionaire about a new Bitcoin product on some nondescript website. I sighed with concern because I knew he had fallen victim to a two-year-old online scam which a...
Economic desperation makes the promise of easy money hard to resist.