This Facebook account supposedly owned by Citizen TV’s senior political affairs journalist Stephen Letoo and offering cash giveaways is FAKE.

The Facebook account, with 2,800 friends, uses a photo of the journalist as its profile photo and an image of a Citizen Digital advert as its cover image.

In one of the posts, the account promises KSh35,000 to whoever answers the question asked correctly.

“Akuna jina ya Boy inaanza na E apart from Enock and Eric prove me wrong💥💥Ujishindie BREAKFAST Gift ksh 35,000 from CITIZEN tv [There is no Boy name starting with E apart from Enock and Eric prove me wrong💥💥Win a BREAKFAST Gift worth ksh 35,000 from CITIZEN tv],” reads one of the posts shared in the Facebook account.

The account also shared another post in a group claiming to offer financial assistance to people in need of school fees, rent, food, or a loan.

Those interested are asked to send the word “Win” or “Promotion” to a specific WhatsApp number. Each post provides a different WhatsApp number. The first WhatsApp number is registered under the name “Promo” and the second under “Rashid Lulu Hassan”.

This is a phishing tactic. When people send a WhatsApp message to these contacts, the person on the other end sees their phone number.

Is it true that Letoo is offering cash giveaways? We checked.

First, we did a keyword search on Facebook to investigate whether the account belongs to Letoo. Our keyword search led us to a verified Facebook account that belongs to the Citizen TV journalist.

After performing another keyword search on Letoo’s verified Facebook account, we found out that the account has not promised to give its followers any money.

Letoo’s account has 209,000 followers and follows 1,600 people. However, the imposter account has 2,800 friends.

Facebook Transparency information of the verified account shows it was created on 14 June 2010 with the username “Stephen Letoo”. The imposter account does not have Facebook Transparency details but the first post was shared on 14 June 2022.

When it was first created, the imposter account was posting photos of a woman. On 21 April 2023, the account changed its profile photo to that of Letoo and began posting about the cash giveaways.

Two things give the Facebook account we are fact-checking away. One is the username “Steven Letoo Citizen”. Letoo goes by the name “Stephen Letoo” on his verified account. Second is the high school that the journalist attended. The account we are looking into claims that the journalist studied at Lake Nona High, but that is false. The political reporter attended Kabianga High School in Kericho.

To further authenticate the Facebook account, we reached out to Letoo, who confirmed via this text message: “This (the Facebook account) is a scam.”

PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook account purporting to belong to Citizen TV’s senior political affairs journalist Stephen Letoo and offering cash giveaways and found it to be FAKE.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Naomi Wanjiku and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.