How Safaricom is struggling to wash off its hands from Dusit attack

Image result for safaricom

Safaricom network is really struggling to get out of the mess they got themselves in through allowing transactions that facilitated DusitD2 attackers.

The team of Investigators have not loosen the the nut. The DCI  is still pressing for Safaricom to take up the responsibility for the numerous transactions.

The Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti is considering charges against officials from the CBK Supervision Department, the Financial Reporting Center, Safaricom’s M-Pesa Supervision Department and officials from Standard Chartered Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank, Equity Bank, Diamond Trust Bank and Cooperative Bank.

Detectives are investigating how Sh9 million used to finance the Dusit terror attack was sent through the M-Pesa network.

Related image

The Anti-Terror Police Unit now has the Central Bank of Kenya, the Financial Reporting Center, Diamond Trust Bank and Safaricom on the radar over the Dusit attack on January 15 that claimed 21 lives.

“We don’t think we have done anything wrong. People use Mpesa to bring money into the country and withdraw it using standard procedures,” said Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom, yesterday. He confirmed that a Safaricom team had met the DCI last week to explain Mpesa procedures.

Image result for bob collymore

“Suspicious transactions are reported to the Financial Reporting Centre. If we see irregular transactions from certain parts of the country or world, we will file a Suspicious Transaction Report. We did file STRs on some of the Dusit transfers. We also terminated their Mpesa tills before the Dusit attack,” he said.

Initial investigations had revealed that one of the terror suspects, Hassan Nur, received Sh9 million from South Africa through M-Pesa over three months. The cash was then sent to Somalia where al Shabaab is based.

Related image

Nur had 52 M-Pesa agent accounts with 47 of them were registered between October and December last year, each with a SIM card. He used different IDs to register the SIM cards.

The transactions were made at DTB Eastleigh branch. Branch manager Sophia Mbogo has already been arrested by the Antiterror.

Image result for dtb eastleigh branch

Police Unit after she failed to report suspicious transactions after Nur withdrew the cash.

The Central Bank supervises banks through its supervision department while the Financial Reporting Centre is mandated to look into suspicious transactions following notification by the banks.

Law enforcement agencies are trying to unravel the money movement system to prevent similar transactions in the future.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *