A police officer based in Kericho County, Kenya was on Friday, May 17, arrested over alleged involvement in the loss of millions of Kenyan shilling from a businessman’s bank account.
According to media reports in Nairobi, the victim claimed that he received a phone call from a person alleging to be a bank customer care officer and sought to do a system upgrade online.
The caller required the businessman to press some numbers on his phone to complete the system upgrade, which he complied with.
Minutes later, the victim was astonished to find that his account was wiped clean and the funds transferred to various bank accounts.
The businessman revealed that he had Ksh1.5 million saved in his account from conducting several businesses. He filed a report to Kericho Police Station for the officers to unearth the whereabouts of the missing cash.
The detectives traced some of the cash to an account belonging to a police officer from Cheptalal Police Station who had received Ksh489,788.
Tagged as a person of interest, the detectives pursued and tracked him to his residence. He was taken into custody and charged with the offence of stealing contrary to section 268 (1) along with section 275 of the Penal Code.
“Any person who steals anything capable of being stolen is guilty of the felony termed theft and is liable, unless owing to the circumstances of the theft or the nature of the thing stolen some other punishment is provided, to imprisonment for three years,” read part of the Penal Code.
The officers investigating the case will seek to establish if the cop was an accomplice to the crime or the scam artist.
The incident highlights the trend of Kenyans losing millions to tech-savvy scammers whose ingenuity seems to grow in sophistication.
From fake promotions, fake SMSs, fake international calls, false emergencies, and credential harvesting to SIM swap fraud and impersonation, the trend has continued to rise.
A report by the TransUnion 2023 State of Omnichannel Fraud Report shows that the rate of fraud attempts in Kenya’s financial services sector has increased by 309 per cent over the past three years.
To mitigate the crisis, the Communications Authority of Kenya published regulations to curb the fraudulent cases, including a Ksh100,000 fine or 12 months jail term for Kenyans using unregistered SIM Cards.
