DCI detective narrates how two Safaricom employees tried to defraud the company Ksh300M
A senior detective from the Director of Criminal Investigations office on Thursday narrated to court how two Safaricom employees allegedly planned to defraud the company a total of Ksh300 million.
Assistant superintendent of police Peter Maina, attached at Safaricom Head of Money Fraud section, told Milimani Chief Magistrate Wendy Kagendo that the employees namely Simon Billy Kinuthia and Brian Njoroge Wamatu demanded from their employer the sum of money not to leak some privileged Safaricom subscriber data from the company database to the public.
They alleged to have committed the offence on diverse dates between May 1 and June 7, 2019.
"The first two accused who are seated in the dock had demanded about Ksh300 million from Safaricom Kenya Limited saying failure to which they would expose the data to the public," officer Maina said.
He told the court that they lodged investigations into the matter after receiving information from the telecommunications regulator Head of Ethic Compliance Patrick Kinoti that there was one person by the name Benedict Kabugi Ndung'u who sent him a sample of the privileged data that he believed was staff of the company.
Kabugi is also jointly charged with Kinuthia and Wamatu with demanding money by menaces and Computer fraud.
Maina informed the court that following the information he received from Kinoti, Kabugi was demanding the money on behalf of his two co-accused.
Maina informed the court that Kinoti on behalf of Safaricom in abid to protect the information from being put to the public. sent Kabugi a sum of Ksh50,000.
"Upon receiving the information we laid a trap and we managed to arrest the said Kabugi at a club in Westlands along Waiyaki Way. It was through intelligence information and with help of members of the public," the officer said.
The accused persons' phones, two laptops and hard drive which were recovered from them during arrest, were produced as exhibits in the matter.
The hearing was adjourned to February 16 and 17.
