Police say that they have arrested the head of a computer crime collective, alleged to have stolen millions of shillings from Kenyan banks in a fraud ring that is estimated to have siphoned billions of shillings of customers’ deposits in the past six months
The suspect, Mr Samatar Yusuf, is a holder of Somali, Kenyan and US passports that intelligence sources believe were acquired fraudulently.
Mr Yusuf was arrested last week as he attempted to bribe a Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officer to have his brother and cousin released. The two are also in custody facing cyber crimes charges.
@EACCKenya Today has arrested Mr. Samatar Yusuy Abdi for an offence of giving a bribe of $ 500 to @DCIKenya Officer @BreakingNewsKE @TheStarKenya @citizentvkenya @ntvkenya @KTNNewsDesk @KBCChannel1 @StandardKenya @K24Tv
— EACC (@EACCKenya) February 1, 2019
“Mr Samatar Yusuf, a businessman of OX-Bow Property Management, was arrested and will be presented in court,” said the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, which is handling the bribery aspect of the case.
The suspect is believed to have lived in the US for about a decade between 2000 and 2010, having emigrated as a refugee from Somalia. However, he holds a Kenyan identity card and passport, both of which indicate that he was born on November 18, 1977. His US passport indicates he was born on November 18, 1979. There are also discrepancies in the spelling of his names on the different identity documents.
According to documents seen by the Business Daily, Mr Yusuf’s name on his Kenyan passport reads as ‘Samatar Yussuf Adan’ while his Kenyan identification card (ID) reads as ‘Samatar Yusuf Abdi’.
Detectives handling the matter suspect that Mr Yusuf is the ring leader of the cyber criminals, relying on his information technology (IT) savvy brother, Abdikarim Yussuf Abdi, and cousin , Ahmed Mohamed Hassan, to execute hacking attacks.
Abdi and Hassan are among 130 suspected fraudsters whose pictures were published in national newspapers last week by the DCI and the Central Bank of Kenya. The DCI issued arrest warrants for all the suspects last Wednesday.
The DCI’s Economic Crimes Unit said in a notice printed in local dailies that the suspects had engaged in banking fraud between June last year and January this year and sought the public’s help for their immediate arrest.
Arrest warrants were issued a day after the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) urged lenders to brace for risks that IT systems pose to their operations, reflecting fears on the rising cases of cybercrimes in financial institutions.
Detectives who sought anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter, also said they were investigating possible links between the hackers and financing of Al-Shabaab terrorists. They estimate that billions could have been stolen from bank customers’ accounts but say banks have been reluctant to make the information public for fear of causing panic in the industry.