Equity Bank branch on Kimathi Street, Nairobi County.
An investigation into the Sh1.5 billion Equity Bank heist has been escalated to Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters, even as it emerged the theft that occurred on July 10 coincided with a separate high profile bank fraud.
The probe into Equity’s Sh1.5 billion pay roll robbery has been moved from the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit based at CBK Towers to DCI headquarters along Kiambu road for close supervision by DCI boss Mohammed Amin, Nation.Africa has established.
It has also emerged that the heavily armed gunmen who raided the Murang’a home of one of the persons of interest are officers drawn from the elite unit of National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Last Sunday night, at around 11 pm, hooded men dressed in fatigues and armed with assault rifles stormed the Mathioya home of Mr Peter Kimani Machiri.
The former MCA is the father of Mr David Machiri Kimani, Equity Bank’s manager at the Group Processing Centre, Salary Processing Unit, whose credentials, detectives say, were used to process the 47 transactions totaling Sh1, 545, 887, 140.49.
It was not immediately clear why NIS agents were involved in a fraud investigation that typically would be the mandate of local DCI and police officers.
Incidentally, on July 10, on the day Equity bank’s robbery is reported to have occurred, a senior government official reportedly asked NIS detectives to investigate the loss of money from his account.
At the time, the brief given to top officials of NIS at the Ruaraka headquarters was that unknown people had hacked into the personal account of the senior official and siphoned the cash.
Those familiar with the brief told Nation.Africa that $8 million went missing from the account. The cash, according to security sources, had been converted into bitcoins and then moved into different offshore accounts. It’s not however clear whether the two incidents are related.
In the Equity Bank’s case, according to court papers, on July 10, the internal control department detected a flurry of suspect transactions from the bank’s salaries account.
According to the DCI, there were 47 withdrawals from the bank’s payroll account and the funds were quickly transferred to multiple accounts held in other banks.
All the transactions lacked corresponding credits from the source entities or individuals, which raised suspicion from internal controls team reviewing the transactions for confirmation details.
After all the transactions were successfully processed, Sh1.5 billion had been funneled out of Equity bank.
On July 11, the bank through the Head of Security Kevin Mwangi reported the matter to the Banking Fraud Investigation Unit at the DCI.
Machiri, the manager whose electronic footprints were noted in the transactions, was summoned to record statements with the police.
Machiri was on leave when the suspicious activities were first detected, according to an affidavit filed at the Milimani Law court on July 12 by the investigating officer, Inspector Boniface Maina, attached to the DCI Banking Fraud Investigations Unit.
The DCI wanted the court’s permission to detain Machiri for 21 days to allow further investigations.
However, the court declined the application and freed Machiri on bond.
Earlier last Sunday, Machiri would be abducted by another group of hooded men from his house in Thogoto, Kiambu.
Later that night, the armed men would raid his father’s home during an operation that was caught on camera. Father and son have been missing ever since.
Kikuyu police boss Ronald Kirui last week told Nation.Africa that no report had been filed about the abductions.
“We don’t have such a report in any of our police stations in Kiambu, “ said Kirui.
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CCTV footage released by the family revealed that the men who abducted the politician had their faces covered and were armed with guns.
Some were carrying gas cylinders believed to have been used to break doors into the house.
The gunmen, who were over 10, the family said, switched off power after which they forced him into a car and took off.
The missing politician’s wife, Nancy Wambui, told the media that that hours before the night raid, the couple had spent the day in church.
“We had just retired to bed when the dogs started barking aggressively and we were curious as to what was happening outside”.
Wambui said the dogs were barking at the men who were trying to break down the gate to their homestead.
Last Thursday, the family lawyer Ndegwa Njiru petitioned the court to order authorities to produce his clients in court. During the same court proceedings, the Director of Public Prosecutions also applied for warrants of arrest against the Equity Bank manager, Machiri.
