Three university students and a Form Four leaver have been arrested by police in connection with the Sh30.9 million robbery at Equity Bank branch in Othaya earlier this month.
Mr Phineas Mutwiri, 26, Mr Dennis Kimathi, 25, Mr Justine Mutua, 23, all students at Technical University of Kenya, together with 21 year old Gregory Gichuru were arrested in Nairobi on Monday morning as suspects in the robbery case.
The four are reported to have been working for a company which had been licensed to register SIM cards by a telecommunications firm.
The firm is reported to have been registering the SIM cards fraudulently and later used in money laundering schemes.
Police sources said that the telephone number used to call the bank’s officials claiming that an audit in the bank had been scheduled prior to the robbery was traced back to the company.
This prompted the police to conduct a search operation that began at 9 a.m on Sunday which culminated in the arrest of the four suspects at 4 a.m on Monday.
Thousands of SIM cards, mobile phones and computers were recovered from the suspects in the sting operation.
It was earlier reported that the Friday robbery had three suspects that got away with Sh30 million from Equity Bank Othaya branch where they walked in while pretending to be auditors from Nairobi.
According to Central Region Police Commander Larry Kieng’, the men went to the bank at about 7am am where they were ushered in by the Operations Manager and other staff.
It is then that they brandished a knife and a panga, demanded access to the strong room where they stashed the money into three sacks and drove off in a saloon car.
