According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the money was transferred in smaller amounts to accounts domiciled with various banks in Nairobi, Mombasa, Eldoret and Malindi/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 20 – Four suspects arrested for allegedly stealing Sh72.6 million from the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) will on Monday face various charges including fraud.
According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the money was transferred in smaller amounts to accounts domiciled with various banks in Nairobi, Mombasa, Eldoret and Malindi.
“Four suspects were #arrested on 17th August & will be #charged today for an alleged stealing amounting to Ksh.72,619,951.83 which was transferred from the Kenya Commercial Bank Ltd in smaller amounts to accounts domiciled with various banks,” it stated.
Through its Twitter account, the DCI stated that “evidence gathered showed that 37 fictitious merchant companies were registered with KCB to facilitate the transfers through fraudulent point of sale card transaction claims which were approved by the four suspects.”
The funds were then shared through M-PESA among the four who are employees of the same bank.
The incident came as the Diamond Trust Bank Kisii branch manager was due to be arraigned in court Monday for allegedly stealing Sh25 million from customers.
Detectives were also pursuing two other suspects believed to have colluded with the bank manager to commit the crime.
According to a police report, the three are accused of accessing various customers’ fixed account numbers and withdrew the cash.
The suspects, according to the report absconded duties and switched off their phones after an internal audit exposed the crime.
Following this, the Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti has warned banks, regulators and mobile service providers to always conduct thorough background checks on their employees.
Kinoti said that most frauds are conducted by employees and that “a thorough check should be done before they are engaged in whatever capacity.”
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