By Sharon Mwende
A prime suspect who defrauded Kasarani Officer Commanding Police Division (OCPD) Peter Mwanzo Ksh600,000 will remain in custody for eight days.
The crime was committed through SIM swapping.
The suspect only ominously identified as Gideon Mark was arrested on January 8,2022 at Bomet county.
He was arraigned before Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate Ms Wandia Nyamu but was not charged with any offence after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations sought to have him detained to enable investigators complete their work.
According to detectives, it is alleged that the suspect executed the crime on diverse dates between January 4 and 5 this year with help of some staff at Safaricom by unlawfully swapping Mr Mwanzo's Safaricom line and using it to fraudulently transfer Sh 600,000 from his Equity Bank account.
The suspect is said to have conned the Kasarani OCPD pretending to be an agent of Safaricom. The suspect is alleged to have called the OCPD several times using a private number only to defraud him of his funds at Equity Bank account after obtaining his private information.
In an affidavit filed in court by the DCI through Corporal Kapario Lekakeny, DCI sought to be allowed to continue holding Mark,saying the investigations into the case involves weighty issues which require ample time as police are expected to travel to Bomet where they intend to make recoveries of the money.
The court heard that Mark is believed to belong to a syndicate roperating from Mulot within Bomet County that is defrauding members of the public using mobile money platforms.
"The suspect was arrested with the help of the service provider being the person who has been using the Airtel and Safaricom line that received the money, however the money was not recovered and the investigators require adequate time to travel to parts of Bomet with the help of the suspect with the aim of making recoveries," the detective informed the court.
Investigations reveal that Mark and his accompliances have turned Mulot into one of the hotspots of mobile phone fraud in the country.
The detective told the court that during the course of their investigations, assorted Sim cards and phones were recovered from the suspect which they require more time to extract information from to enable them arrive at the ideal charges to prefer against the suspect.
"That the DCI would rely on Mark to assist in identifying members of his syndicate who are all using subscribers' numbers registered with other people's national identity cards to disguise their identities," the officer stated.
During interrogation the suspect revealed that he is a member of the sim swap syndicate in Mulot in Bomet county which is known as "Confirmed" which has been swindling members of the public million of shilling through hacking their emails and mobiles number of Safaricom and Airtel.
Police are also tracking down officials from the two giant mobile service providers (Safaricom and Airtel) who have been colluding with the scammers to siphon money from the members of the public.
According to police, Mark told investigators that they target the elderly by hacking their emails and phone numbers which enable them to access all their private information and then use it to wipe out the victims' M-Pesa and bank accounts of all cash.
Police further claim that the suspect has since disclosed that in Bomet the syndicate buys the registered numbers at Sh 200 which they use to defraud their victims. The numbers are said to have been registered using Identity cards of the dead or lost ID cards.
Sim-swapping is a form of fraud in which scammers manipulate unsuspecting mobile phone users to divulge their confidential information.
The scammers then use this information to replace the sim cards without the owners' knowledge, with the new cards then used to wipe out the clients' M-Pesa and bank accounts of all cash.
