A pharmacist, who also serves as an Equity Bank agent, is facing six criminal charges, including theft, money laundering, unauthorized access to a mobile banking platform, computer fraud, and negligence after allegedly facilitating the withdrawal of Sh100,000 from an Uber driver’s account using a stolen mobile phone.
According to court documents, James Mathenge Kibe allegedly stole a mobile phone valued at Sh34,000 and Sh100,000 in cash from Abdulahi Sharif Aden on January 3 at the Jeypharm Modern Chemist agent outlet in Dandora, Nairobi County.
In the money laundering charge, Kibe is accused of failing to conduct proper customer due diligence in contravention of the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act.
“As the person handling a Sh100,000 financial transaction on behalf of Equity Bank Limited, he allegedly neglected to verify and retain the customer’s identity using a national identity card or passport and a signature in the prescribed transaction register and went ahead to process a suspicious cash withdrawal.”
The transaction records book were not kept as required under the Agent Banking Agreement (ABA), hence failing to comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures, a lapse that contributed to the loss of funds.
Prosecutors also claim that Kibe, acting jointly with others not before the court, intentionally and without authority gained access to Aden’s Equity Bank’s mobile banking platform, Eazzy247 and prompted the system to perform functions that enabled him to view the complainant’s account details, including PIN reset logs and session logs, knowing the access was unauthorized.
He denied the charges and he was grated a cash bail of Sh 1 million and a bond of sh 2 million.
