KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) was identified as the province in South Africa with the highest amount of digital fraud and active fraud syndicates.

Thalia Pillay, CEO of anti-fraud tech startup Orca, told MyBroadband that it was the province which emerged the most often in its fraud monitoring software.

“Definitely KZN. It is the highest- and most fraudulent province across the board,” she said. Pillay’s company protects over R82 billion in monthly transactions across several industries from fraud.

The province that would become KZN was created in 1994 when the first post-apartheid Constitution called for the merging of the KwaZulu bantustan with the Natal province.

Both halves of the province, KwaZulu and Natal, have storied and often bloody histories during the colonial era in South Africa, from the 1830s up until the 1990s.

The province is the birthplace of the famed Zulu king, Shaka kaSenzangakhona, and of a number of South Africa’s political leaders, both past and present.

This included founding members of the African National Congress (ANC), like Pixley ka Isaka Seme and John Dube, the ANC’s founding president.

In modern times, the province weathered a highly disruptive period during the COVID-19 pandemic, the July 2021 unrest, and devastating flooding, only recently showing signs of recovery.

Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli called this a “period of hardship” in February. He said the province embarked on a coordinated recovery programme, which led to 1.8% economic growth in 2025.

Ntuli said that the growth forecast for 2026 pointed to a further expansion to 2.1%, which reflected continued economic stability thanks to improved energy supply and recovered key infrastructure systems.

Despite these improvements, more than half of the households in the province depend on South African Social Security (SASSA) grants to meet their basic needs.

According to the provincial government, KZN had the highest number of grant beneficiaries nationally, with 4.16 million grant recipients in the first quarter of 2023.

The province also had the highest share in all categories of social grants, except for the War Veterans’ Grant, in which it was on par with the Western Cape at 30.8%.

Fraud syndicates originating in KwaZulu-Natal

Pillay told MyBroadband that Orca had identified a high volume of fraud syndicate activity emerging from KZN, and that these syndicates are migrating.

“There are a lot of syndicates operating across KZN. We are also seeing them migrate into the Eastern Cape,” she said. “You can see where their movements are going, which is really interesting.”

In April 2026, the police raided an alleged illegal scam call centre syndicate operating in Umhlanga, Durban, which was linked to banking scam campaigns.

Authorities apprehended 23 individuals suspected of belonging to this syndicate from an upscale property in the upmarket suburb.

These suspects were alleged to be involved with vishing scams, where they telephonically call victims and convince them that there are problems with their bank accounts.

The alleged scammers then attempted to convince victims to transfer funds into accounts owned by the syndicate for safekeeping, resulting in significant theft.

“Once the funds were transferred, they were rapidly withdrawn, thereby enabling the syndicate to illicitly appropriate the proceeds,” explained Firoz Cachalia, acting police minister, in June.

Cachalia said the operation to take down the Umhlanga syndicate was driven by verified intelligence indicating that the building they were using served as a base for large-scale banking fraud.

Pillay said that, for these scammers, fraud becomes a full-time job, as they are constantly looking to scam people out of money.

“They’re very creative with it. So things like account takeovers, especially on business accounts, are common,” she said.

“We’re seeing a lot more like SIM swap fraud, just pure money muling and laundering, as well as voucher fraud.”

She said that Orca has identified SIM card farms in South Africa where fraudsters employ various modus operandi.

“Especially with AI these days, we have seen some guys run large-scale smishing and phishing attacks while also handling money muling and other operations simultaneously.”

Source: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/security/657117-the-province-with-the-most-digital-fraud-in-south-africa.html