Safaricom staff charged with attempting to defraud firmTwo employees of Safaricom ltd were on Monday charged with demanding Sh300 million from the company by menaces.
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Safaricom employees Simon Billy Kinuthia (left) and Brian Njoroge Wamatu at Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi on June 10, 2019 where they were charged with attempting to defraud the company of Sh300 million. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Two employees of Safaricom ltd were on Monday charged with demanding Sh300 million from the company by menaces.
Mr Simon Billy Kinuthia and Mr Brian Njoroge Wamatu, however, denied illegally copying and transferring privileged information on a subscriber from the company’s database and sharing it with an unauthorised person. COMPUTER FRAUD
Appearing before Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi, the duo denied the charges of computer fraud and demanding money by threats.
It is alleged that with others not before court and with intent to defraud, the suspects unlawfully copied and transferred subscriber’s data information from Safaricom’s company database to one Mr Charles Njuguna Kimani. They allegedly committed the offence between May 1 and June 7, 2019. SH1 MILLION
It is also alleged that the suspects demanded Sh300 million from Safaricom with intent to steal.
They denied the charges and were ordered to deposit Sh1 million cash bail each to secure their release. The court ordered the two to be reporting to the DCI offices, serious crimes unit, twice every week.
However, their lawyer said that reporting twice a week to DCI offices was not necessary. He said that his clients were employees of Safaricom and their jobs would be at stake should they fail to report to work in the next 48 hours. He asked the court to allow the suspects to report to DCI offices one a week. The case will be heard on July 16.
That’s Kenyans for you. Give them jobs, and instead of building careers and dedicating their services to the society, all that we do is start looking for loopholes to exploit , so as to get rich.
Go to some remote corners in this country, where school are built with mad, and no amenities, na bado utaskia chairman wa PTA na Headmaster are misappropriating funds.
i never really understood this story. but the biggest threat to employers is employees. when we say Africans are their own worst enemy, you don’t have to look much further…
I don’t think so. Safaricom pays its middle level staff (senior officer grade) money that the government doesn’t even pay senior directors in ministries, yet they still want to steal. Shame. It is symptomatic of ‘primitive accumulation’ seen even among our leaders.
The weakest link in ICT/cyber matters is the human link. Mwanadamu na tamaa zake ni kama mchele na rangi ya white. The current laws are encouraging these crimes
Fraud happens everywhere in the world. Kudos to SafCon for taking prompt action. Most organisations do not have the guts to reign in errant employees e.g. GoK. The judicial system will however mess this case like they always do.
I suspect they were either selling data for commercial purposes (data mining and marketing) and possibly for investigations… The reporter decided to be vague