Following reports of the dead losing their money to fraudsters, the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) has commenced a probe focusing on medics from four city hospitals.
DCI boss George Kinoti said that they are following leads of medics who are reportedly colluding with fraudsters.
Kinoti said that there has been a growing record of rich but terminally ill patients being fleeced. The criminals behind this are believed to be working in cahoots with medics who share personal details about their patients.
They then hack their bank accounts and withdraw millions of shillings without the knowledge of their families.
“We stumbled upon one case, which has opened a Pandora’s box. Our preliminary findings reveal the deep involvement of some employees of hospitals that are highly regarded,” Kinoti told People Daily.
A case is point is that of former PCEA secretary-general the late Rev Peter Kania Kariuki who succumbed to COVID-19 in July, 2020.
Before he was buried, fraudsters had started siphoning funds from his two bank accounts. It is only after two weeks into his burial that his wife realized that Ksh2 million from her husband’s bank accounts had been withdrawn.
The late Amos Ngata Muiruri, another shrewd businessman from Nyadarua suffered the same fate by what DCI has said was an act by the same people who fleeced Rev Kania’s bank accounts.
There are two other cases of the same kind of fraud involving another tycoon from Kiambu and another one from Rift Valley.
Kinoti offered that this is a business that has been going on for a long time without the knowledge of the public nor security agencies.
Now, DCI sleuths have cast their net wide in cracking the whip on the criminals who execute this fraud through sim card swap.
He said that the rich in the society are a prime target by fraudsters who have established networks with rogue bank staff, hospital employees and a few bad elements in the working for the service providers who facilitate the successful sim swap without consent.
Of the four hospitals that the DCI is focusing on, three are private facilities while the fourth one is a public hospital.
