How rogue bank staffers steal depositor’s money
Fraud has become a worldwide problem that is not set to abate in the near future which is eroding the profitability of organisations with devastating effects on firm solvency.
It is considered to be a major problem within the Kenyan banking industry where robbers are largely employees or former employees who know how the system works and, in most cases, collude with outsiders – making the work of the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit (BFIU) tedious.
The thieves only need to be armed with a few personal details to gain access to billions of bank coffers with a few strokes of their laptop keys while sipping coffee or whiling away the time in some dingy prison cell.
Recently, Equity Bank sacked a senior officer over links with an ex-employee who was earlier dismissed for fraud.
This is after a judge endorsed a decision by the bank to dismiss Doreen Mutitu.
Mutitu was summarily dismissed by Equity on March 10, 2015 a week after her suspension for engaging with a former employee, Sam Ongiri who had been sacked over fraud allegations.
She was aggrieved by the lender’s decision and sued for wrongful dismissal.
In its defense, Equity said that around January 2015 it detected suspicious communication between Ms Mutitu and Ongiri who had been dismissed in 2009 for involvement in fraud and tampering with customer information.
Although Mutitu initially denied the links, she later admitted to knowing him and meeting him physically. She also owned up to having exchanged numerous text messages with Ongiri and even had tele-conversation with him, as suspected by the bank.
In 2018, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) highlighted several cases of fraud by bank employees, much to the surprise of many Kenyans.
Through a series of Twitter posts, the DCI revealed that 37 fictitious companies were registered with the Kenya Commercial Bank through fraudulent point of sale card transactions.
“Evidence gathered showed that 37 fictitious merchant companies were registered with KCB to facilitate the #fraud through fraudulent point of sale card transaction claims which were approved by the #four suspects and money sent to the companies’ account as POS card settlements,” read the tweet.
It also emerged that the funds were shared through M-Pesa among: Benson Mwai Karugu, Edmund Kirturi Mutua, Evans Kenda Kiplagat and Macdonald Mochama Mongwe.
The suspects were arrested on August 17, 2018 for allegedly stealing Sh72,619,951.83 which was transferred from KCB in smaller amounts to accounts domiciled with various banks in Nairobi, Mombasa, Eldoret and Malindi.
In a separate incident, Abel Onyango, a relations officer with Family Bank, was accused of withdrawing Sh1.5 million from customers’ accounts without their knowledge.
Elsewhere, Peter Sungu Nyakomitta, a branch manager with Diamond Trust Bank (DTB) in Kisii was arrested and arraigned in Milimani Law Courts for stealing Sh25 million from customers, fixed account numbers.
The theft was discovered after an internal reconciliation process was done.
