This archive report was first published on 16 November 2019.
Published on November 16, 2019, a report by the Rwanda Investigations Bureau revealed the identities of eight Kenyans being held in Kigali over an attempt to hack Equity Bank Rwanda's branch.
Four of the detained individuals have pending cases of hacking into banks and stealing more than Sh100 million. Reuben Mwangi Kirongothi, a former IT staff member at a local bank, was charged with hacking a bank in Nairobi and stealing Sh80 million. His case is pending before a magistrate court, where he reportedly failed to appear on November 1.
Eric Dickson Njagi is facing charges of stealing Sh2.7 million from a bank through false accounting, while Godfrey Gachiri was previously charged with stealing Sh21.5 million through computer fraud in 2016. However, the charges against him were dropped by the bank on June 24, 2016, after the funds were recovered.
According to the DCI Banking Fraud Unit investigators, Erickson Macharia Kinyua is also facing criminal charges. The unit has profiled young IT experts aged 27 and below as major suspects in cyber-crime cases, citing their tech-savviness and ability to exploit weak points within bank systems.
Following the rise in cyber fraud, the Central Bank has issued a new policy requiring banks to report cases of cybercrime in real-time. The regulation, which came into effect last month, demands that banks and mobile money firms report cybercrime incidents to the CBK within two hours.
