Inspector Bonface Maina Kamau and Sergeant Josiah Gichobi arrived at Equity Bank’s Britam Towers headquarters in Upper Hill on July 11, 2024 in response to a distress call made by the lender’s head of security, Kevin Mwangi.
The duo, from the Banking Fraud Investigation Unit (BFIU), were taken through a series of 47 transactions with a net value of Sh1,545,553,374.59 and which it turned out was the sum total stolen during a clever heist the previous day.
Much like Alice in Wonderland, Mr Kamau and Mr Gichobi were just about to go down a rabbit hole and encounter mind-boggling adventures, which point to a possible plot to cover-up one of the biggest bank heists in Kenya’s history.
Internal police correspondence seen by the Nation indicate that Mr Kamau was transferred from the BFIU to the DCI offices in Baragoi, Samburu County.
Mr Kamau has written protest letters to DCI boss Mohamed Amin, Inspector-General of Police Douglas Kanja, the Internal Affairs Unit of the National Police Service and the National Police Service Commission, claiming that his transfer is part of an attempt to scuttle the heist investigations.
He claims that the transfer follows failed attempts by some heavy hitters in the security structure to rescue a woman the detectives believe was the Sh1.5 billion heist’s mastermind — Ruth Muthoni Kamau.
Businesswoman Ruth Muthoni Kamau whom the Banking Fraud Investigation Unit linked to the theft of Sh1.5 billion from Equity Bank on July 10, 2024.
Photo credit: Pool
Ms Muthoni, the correspondence indicates, allegedly pocketed over Sh800 million.
The correspondence indicates that two of her companies — Goodmans Fresh Ltd and Blue Kenfresh Ltd — received Sh105 million. She also received some funds to her personal bank accounts, and allegedly some in cash from other suspects.
Ms Muthoni on Sunday declined to respond to the Nation’s queries on her alleged role in the heist. She asked us why we singled her out from a pool of 200 suspects.
She further claimed to have been abducted in 2024 during the investigations, despite Mr Kamau of BFIU maintaining that she had been arrested to shed light on the Sh800 million she received directly and from other suspects in the heist.
“I was not arrested. I was abducted. There were over 200 people I hear, I don’t understand why you are picking me? I don’t know who I’m talking to so I choose not to talk much. Maybe you are one of the abductors… I don’t know. The whole story is in court,” Ms Muthoni said.
The court case she alluded to was an application to block the police from investigating her, or arresting her, in relation to the heist.
The case is ongoing, but Ms Muthoni, in her affidavits, claims that she was illegally roped into the heist investigations on account of her former husband, Andrew Kamau Muhiu, and whom she says investigators linked to other suspects.
Mr Muhiu was a director of Banda Homes, which the High Court in March placed under liquidation following an insolvency petition by Netherlands-based accountant Susan Obuya.
Ms Obuya was one of the hundreds of people who deposited millions with the real estate firm but were not given the homes they paid for.
Mr Kamau of BFIU was transferred to Baragoi on October 11, 2024 following a complaint by Ms Muthoni.
Ms Muthoni filed the complaint with the police’s Directorate of Public Complaints, and cites Mr Kamau’s criticism of her statement with the BFIU of July 22, 2024 and claims that he directed her to raise surety of Sh10 million for which no receipt was issued.
Ms Muthoni further claimed that Mr Kamau had orchestrated her abduction, and that of other arrests.
Mr Kamau maintained in his response to the complaint that there was no Sh10 million surety, as Ms Muthoni was released on Sh300,000 police bail. He added that Ms Muthoni and the other suspects were arrested, not abducted, following approval from his superiors at the BFIU.
Mr Kamau denies the allegation and argues that there is a scheme to remove him from the case and the BFIU so as to scuttle the probe.
Interestingly, Mr Kamau’s transfer was done before the complaint by Ms Muthoni had been fully investigated, which he claims in letters to Mr Amin, Mr Kanja and the National Police Service Commission.
Mr Kamau, in his protest letters, goes on to name two senior DCI officers, one from the Transnational Organised Crime Unit, who incessantly tried to help Ms Muthoni wriggle out of the investigation.
He also claims that bureaucrats from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions made similar attempts.
The 47 transactions from July 10, 2024 had been flagged by Equity Bank’s internal control department.
On paper, the transactions indicated that several companies were releasing funds intended to pay their workers’ salaries.
But in reality, the institution had been robbed, as the Sh1.5 billion was drawn from Equity Bank’s salary suspense general ledger, which was under the care of general manager David Kimani Machiri.
Equity Bank Manager David Machiri Kimani.
Photo credit: Pool
Mr Machiri immediately became the prime suspect, as there were all indications of an inside job.
On July 12, 2024 the DCI facilitated the filing of a court application to arrest and detain Mr Machiri for 21 days.
But Magistrate Geoffrey Onsarigo released Mr Machiri on a Sh500,000 cash bail, with orders for the banker to appear before the BFIU every Tuesday and Thursday until the completion of investigations.
Mr Machiri was also ordered to attend court on August 15, 2024 to confirm compliance with the court orders, and for the BFIU to give a status update.
On July 16, 2024 five individuals believed to have received part of the loot walked into the Equity Bank headquarters, and were detained by security officers, who then alerted the BFIU.
Sahal Mohamed Sahal, Mohamed Hashi Adan, Kariye Salah Ali, Hassan Abdirashid Mohamed and Mohamud Mohamed Arab were trying to access part of the Sh463 million that they had received, and which Equity Bank and the BFIU maintained was part of the stolen funds.
Mr Gichobi and Corporal Fatuma Dadacha were sent to arrest the five, who were then taken in for questioning at the BFIU headquarters.
The five indicated to BFIU investigators that they withdrew some of the funds received through Hawala —a semi informal money transfer system — and some directly from banks.
They also told investigators that some of the money was flipped into foreign currencies in forex bureaus before being handed over to an individual they identified as Geoffrey.
On July 18, 2024 Sahal Mohamed Sahal aided BFIU’s Ms Dadacha to trace and arrest the man identified as Geoffrey at The Vineyard Ridgeways, a popular nightclub along Kiambu Road. Mr Sahal and his four co-suspects also knew Geoffrey and Gideon Kamau Wangeci.
Mr Wangeci did not have any identification documents on him at the time of arrest, but told BFIU’s Mr Kamau, Ms Dadacha and Inspector Chrispinus Sore that he lived in Makongeni in Thika, Kiambu County.
The BFIU team immediately drove to Thika with Mr Wangeci. As they drove, the BFIU officers called Thika Police Station and requested an official vehicle and officers to escort them to the home Mr Wangeci claimed to live in.
But when they got to Thika town, Mr Wangeci changed his story and claimed that he actually lived with his parents in Kamwangi, Gatundu Sub-County — 26 kilometres from where they were.
As the vehicle sped towards Kamwangi from Thika, Mr Wangeci offered to lead the BFIU officers to Ruth Muthoni Kamau, whom he claimed lived in Runda.
The BFIU detectives agreed to that deal and called Evergreen Police Post seeking assistance in tracing the home and its alleged owner.
Unable to identify the house, or spot Ms Muthoni’s car, the BFIU team left. Mr Wangeci changed his residence story once more, now claiming to live in Muthaiga.
At the Muthaiga house, the BFIU team met the caretaker, who maintained that she did not have keys to the bedroom. Mr Wangeci broke the bedroom door and granted the officers access.
But there was no shred of evidence that could shed light on the bank heist. There was also no document that could assist in confirming Mr Wangeci’s identity.
On July 19, 2024 the BFIU officers, through the DPP’s office, filed a court application to hold Mr Wangeci for seven days. Mr Wangeci was released on Sh100,000 cash bail, and the BFIU ordered to take the suspect’s fingerprints and file an identification report.
The National Registration Bureau, after running Mr Wangeci’s fingerprints through its systems, found the individual to actually be Geoffrey Kahungi Kiragu — the mastermind of the Lesedi Developers scam, in which over 800 people lost at least Sh1 billion in a bogus real estate investment.
Lesedi Developers founder and managing director Geoffrey Kiragu who is also linked to realtors Bomalink Concepts and Brickways. The Banking Fraud Investigation Unit linked Mr Kiragu and Brickways to a Sh1.5bn heist in July 2024.
Photo credit: Pool
Since Lesedi’s collapse with investors’ funds in 2023, Mr Kiragu had been busy. Aside from pushing for an out-of-court deal with Lesedi victims following a criminal case, Mr Kiragu had founded another real estate firm, Bomalink Concepts Ltd.
The DCI published a warning to the public against dealing with Bomalink on account of Mr Kiragu’s alleged misdeeds in the Lesedi debacle.
In the warning, the DCI stated that Bomalink was offering for sale the exact same parcels of land that Lesedi Developers had used to defraud hundreds of unsuspecting investors.
The DCI insiders also raised another warning on another real estate firm identified as Brickways Properties Ltd emerged, alleging that it was Mr Kiragu’s, through a close relative standing in as his proxy.
And in between, Brickways received millions from the Equity Bank heist.
On LinkedIn, he now goes by Gideon Kamau, and lists branch manager at Lesedi Developers as his last job.
On the same day that the BFIU filed an application to hold Mr Kiragu for seven days, he agreed to help the investigators lure Ms Muthoni — who was now believed to be the heist’s mastermind — out of the shadows. Ms Muthoni agreed to Mr Kiragu’s meeting request, with the Windsor Golf Hotel & Country Club being the venue.
BFIU’s Mr Kamau requested Ms Muthoni to leave with the detectives, but she declined.
Mr Kamau holds that Ms Muthoni asked him to have a sit down at Windor, which the BFIU detective says he declined. He also claims that Ms Muthoni offered a Sh500,000 bribe, which the detectives declined.
While her profile was being put together at the BFIU offices, Ms Muthoni allegedly made several WhatsApp calls to senior officers in the DCI and the National Police Service, all of which went unanswered.
On her way out of the interrogation room, Ms Muthoni allegedly met an officer she was acquainted with, and whom Mr Kamau claims gave her a BFIU contact for “furtherance in assistance she needed”.
Ms Muthoni spent the night at Kileleshwa Police Station, but was released the following day on Sh300,000 police bail.
She reported to BFIU offices on July 22, 2024 and the investigation team lead, Mr Jackson Nzau, recorded Ms Muthoni’s statement.
In her statement, which was curiously dated July 22, 2023, Ms Muthoni claimed that she deals in export of mutton and goat meat to Bahrain, Kuwait and Dubai, in addition to selling the same products locally.
She further claimed that a senior bank official called her on July 13, 2024 — three days after the heist —and informed her that Equity Bank had recalled funds deposited into her account. She claimed the recalled funds totalled Sh36 million.
“The caller then went on to inform me to establish the reason for the recalling of the funds from Equity Bank or from the Banking Fraud Investigation Unit. On Monday July 15, 2024 I visited the BFIU offices at Ex-Telecoms House to inquire on the report delivered by the bank… I met a certain officer who introduced himself as Otieno,” part of Ms Muthoni’s statement reads.
“He informed me that he was not aware of the case but since the officer investigating the matter was not in, he would find out afterwards and let me know. He told me to search for the supporting documents to my transactions and come with them once ready to meet the officer,” the statement further reads.
Before going to the BFIU offices to record her statement, Ms Muthoni claimed to have visited her two banks — Cooperative and NCBA —and they both declined to issue her statements because the accounts were flagged and under investigation.
Mr Kamau now says in his letters protesting the transfer to Baragoi that there were technical irregularities in Ms Muthoni’s statement, such as the wrong date and failure by the recording BFIU officer to jot down his initials.
Another suspect, Mr Owen Karanja, received Sh215 million through his KT Owens Group, Mac and Gray Ltd and Axteron Technologies Ltd.
Mr Karanja told BFIU detectives that he transferred all the funds into bitcoins, as they were deposited into a Binance crypto wallet owned by Ms Muthoni. Equity Bank has been trying to reverse those transactions.
After being fingered by several suspects, the BFIU team resolved to have Ms Muthoni file a further statement in the presence of all the involved detectives. She allegedly stalled, but agreed to record one on October 30, 2024.
