Over 20 people have been arrested by police as investigations gather pace over the loss of Sh170 million by Equity Bank to a group of hackers.
The 20 were rounded up from various locations; including Roysambu, Kahawa Wendani and Ruaka by detectives from the Banking Fraud Unit on Monday and Tuesday. They are currently being interrogated at the BFU headquarters as police try to establish how Equity Bank’s security systems were breached.
The hacking which has shocked Kenya’s financial system is said to have taken place between April 9 and April 15.
The fraud which took place over a period of seven days was detected yesterday morning by Equity Bank’s Risk Department. This is after over over Sh100 million had already made it out of the bank’s system through MPesa and accounts belonging to 11 other commercial banks.
According to a letter written by Equity to the Banking Fraud Unit, the attack took place between April 9 and April 15, when the bank detected an abnormally high movement of cash from certain accounts.
“Early April 15, the bank’s risk department discovered an upsurge of transactions emanating from the bank’s incoming Mastercard GL,” reported Equity through Gerald Munyiri, the bank’s General Manager for Security and Investigations.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that between April 9 and April 15, Sh179,677,736 was paid out from the GL fraudulently to the 551 bank accounts. Additionally, Sh63,023,983 was sent to Safaricom Mpesa and Sh39,047,344 to 11 commercial banks.
Equity has since reached out to Safaricom to assist in tracing the whereabouts of the missing Sh100 million which is believed to have been stolen by Kenyan hackers with assistance from outside the country.
