Safaricom staff charged with attempting to defraud firm

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

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By  Sam Kiplagat

Court Reporter

Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Appearing before Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi, the duo denied charged of computer fraud and demanding money by threats.

  • It is also alleged that the suspects demanded Sh300 million from Safaricom, with intent to steal.

  • The court ordered the two to be reporting to the DCI offices, serious crimes unit, once every week.

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

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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.

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