DCI Arrest 8 Men Who Stole Over Ksh 500M in Mobile Money Fraud

In a well-choreographed mobile money fraud, eight young men aged between 24 and 30 from Nakuru and Transzoia counties stole Ksh500 million.

According to the detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the eight successfully registered hundreds of sim cards to effortlessly steal money from a popular lender.
  
In a statement dated Wednesday, February 8, DCI detailed the luxurious lives the eight lived having bought two brand new Subarus, one Mark X, a Toyota Probox, and two motorbikes.

Undated photo of police officers outside the DCI headquarters along Kiambu Road

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According to the DCI, the report of a suspicious amount of money being sent to some individuals was made in August 2022 and the investigations began.

“Detectives began investigations after a report was filled to the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit (BFIU) in August 2022, after the managers of the fund detected an unusual spike in mobile loan uptakes that were way above their performance scale and the borrowers were not repaying the loans,” DCI narrated. 

Through the months-long investigations, the detectives unearthed that one of the suspects fraudulently registered sim cards he would later sell to his accomplices.

Allegedly he had access to the National Registration Bureau database where he developed fake identity numbers that were used in the high profile fraud.

“According to sleuths from BFIU, over 123,000 new mobile phone numbers opted into mobile loans and took up loans in January 2022. Thereafter, the SIM cards were either fraudulently vacated or switched off and efforts to reach the customers turned futile,” DCI stated.

Furthermore, according to detectives, the suspects would borrow money from the online lender to increase their limit before borrowing a huge amount and disposing of the sim cards.

Additionally, the sleuths uncovered that some of the lines had been registered as money agents where the borrowed funds would be deposited to personal bank accounts belonging to the individuals, disguised as a float. 

After their arrest, detectives retrieved 14 mobicom phones, six laptops, over 40 mobile phones, seven routers, assorted sim cards, over 1000 sim card registration forms, over 200 ATM cards from all major banks, and car agreements among other exhibits.

Conclusively, the detectives are currently interrogating the suspects for more insights into the high-level fraud before arraigning them in court.

A Toyota Mark X (left) and Toyota Probox (right) retrieved by DCI from 8 scammers in Nakuru and Trans Nzoia Counties on Wednesday, February 8, 2023.

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