Woman tells court how she lost Sh3.9m in bank scandal

A court in Nairobi has issued a warrant of arrest against a prime suspect in an alleged Sh3.9 million online banking fraud case.

Kibera Court Principal Magistrate Margaret Murage issued the order after Harrison Omondi Opiyo failed to show up for a hearing in a case where he is accused of stealing from Sera Wambui Kariuki’s account held at Ecobank.

Omondi was charged alongside Calvin Mayaka Abuya, Elizabeth Nyaboke Zaidi and Davis Muchira Magori. They were accused of committing the crime between November 22, 2021, and November 27, 2021.

They also faced a second count of conspiracy to commit a felony, of which the prosecution claimed that they colluded to commit the crime within the same period.

They all denied the charges. In the case, Wambui testified that, at the time, she was in the US, thus she could not use her mobile number.

She said she did not know what role was played by each of the suspects. At the same time, she said that she was unaware how much money each one of the accused persons got.

Wambui noted that the money in question was her savings and the incident thwarted her plans.

However, Wambui asserted that she was not the one who made the call or sent an email as she did not use her mobile phone in the USA.

She told the court that she was a victim of a SIM swap syndicate. In the meantime, Ecobank’s internal investigator Joel Kiarie told the court that Wambui first lodged a complaint with the lender.

The officer said that Wambui had reported that there were unauthorised withdrawals from the online account. According to him, Wambui explained that she had travelled out of the country.

He narrated that upon checking the account, he observed that there were indeed withdrawals through the bank’s online platform. The witness said that the amount withdrawn was Sh3,926,360 and was withdrawn from November 24 to November 29, 2021.

The transactions were nine in total, he said. The first transaction, he said was Sh70,000 which was wired to a Safaricom line. The court heard that the second tranche of the same amount was wired the same day to the same mobile number.

The highest amount, he said, was Sh999,860 which was sent to NCBA account on November 26. The court heard that another amount of Sh580,000 was wired to the same NCBA account on November 29.

The investigator said there was email communication with the bank for change of password.

Kiarie, a former police officer, stated that it could not have been Wambui who sought to have the password changed. He was emphatic that Wambui could not have withdrawn the money as she raised the red flag.

He said that at least Sh519,000 was recovered from NCBA and Sh96,000 from the telco. According to Kiarie, Wambui lost Sh3,171,360. The case will proceed in September.