Cyber crime is one of the priority crimes for the region which comes in different forms, some of which are highlighted below:

1. Card Fraud Card fraud is reported in most countries in the region. Criminals steal or clone credit and debit cards issued by banks and use them to steal from bank   accounts or making online purchases.
2. Identity Theft In identity theft, fraudsters access enough information about someone, (name, date of birth, current and previous addresses) to commit fraud. Victims are either alive or deceased and through identity theft, victims lose money when criminals use their names to access bank loans and credit cards.
3. Fake  lottery/ Inheritance These are Advance Fee Frauds where victims are asked to make an advance payment for a favour or a benefit to be derived from transaction. These scams are common and a significant number of citizens have fallen victim. For example, victims are advised that they have won a lottery or that their accounts are due to be credited with huge sums of money and are asked to make upfront payments as facilitation fees.
4. Electronic Money Laundering (virtual currency) Electronic funds transfers have been used in concealing and moving proceeds of crime across jurisdictions. With the emergence and proliferation of various technologies of electronic commerce, criminals are using virtual currency to launder funds and evade tax. Of interest is the use of bitcoins, which is a new innovative payment network that uses technology to operate without the involvement of central authorities or banks. It is a form of digital currency created and held electronically, through computer software which generates virtual value from a process called Bitcoin mining where people are to solve complicated mathematical problems.
5. Salami Attack; The attacks are often used in committing financial crime and are based on the idea that an alteration so insignificant would go unnoticed in a single case. For example, a bank employee inserts a programme into the bank’s servers that deducts a small amount of money (say 5 cents a month) from the account of every customer. Such unauthorised debit is likely to remain unnoticed by an account holder, because of its small size, but the criminal is able to reap huge profits from aggregate deductions from all the accounts.