This archive report was first published on 16 November 2019.
Published on November 16, 2019, Rwandan investigators revealed the identities of eight Kenyans being held in Kigali over an attempt to hack Equity Bank Rwanda branch.
Four of the eight Kenyans have pending cases of hacking into banks and stealing more than Sh100 million. Reuben Mwangi Kirongothi, a former IT staff at a local bank, was charged with hacking a bank in Nairobi and stealing Sh80 million. His case is pending before a magistrate court.
Eric Dickson Njagi is facing criminal charges of stealing Sh2.7 million from a bank through false accounting. The matter is pending in court. Godfrey Gachiri was in 2016 charged with stealing Sh21.5 million through computer fraud, but the funds were recovered and the charges dropped.
According to a report from 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.
The banking sector has had to up the game by employing IT gurus following the rise in cyber fraud. Central Bank has issued a new policy requiring banks to report cases of cybercrime in real time.
