Last year in KCB’s sustainability report, the lender said internal fraud attempts hit 894, nearly doubling from previous year’s 574 cases. The report was covering events up to December last year showing that overall, KCB was faced with 1,213 attempts of fraud.
KCB, however, did not disclose how many of these attempts were successful and how much money was lost but notes that it sacked 10 employees last year over the same.
“Internally, the Group has a zero-tolerance policy for all forms of corruption, bribery and unethical business practices. KCB requires all employees, as well as service providers, to adhere to the Group code of ethical conduct,” KCB states in the sustainability report.
The spike in fraud cases came in the year that Kenya’s most profitable lender with Sh537 billion in deposits trained 4,500 employees in anti-money laundering and fraud.
And yesterday, yet another Kenyan exposed Kenya Commercial Bank Group after alleging that they are using proxies to con Kenyans.
According to the tweets, there is a group of fraudsters who collaborate with KCBs ex-employees and telecommunication companies ex-employee to steal from Kenyans. KCB has been the prone bank in the hands of fraudsters and even people think some staffs collude with the fraudsters to the con games.
“A man yesterday at around 10:30 called pretending to be a Safaricom customer care agent called me and asked for my credentials I refused to give him and he threatened to block my sim card. A few minutes later I receive a message about Sim-swapping,” Chirchir said.
Court cases show that last year August, four KCB employees were arrested over alleged theft of Sh72 million. Two workers were also arrested in Wundanyi over the loss of Sh21 million. It was also the same year KCB lost over Sh52 million when thieves dug into the strong room of its Thika branch.
https://twitter.com/chirchir69/status/1256173088284315648?s=20
KCB says fraud, illicit money flows, money laundering and cybersecurity are a major challenge for financial institutions and that it follows a holistic approach in risk management and governance to combat these challenges. The latest disclosure means that KCB has sacked 128 employees in the last five years over internal fraud.
It is still unclear how the funds were withdrawn and how the callers managed to get full details of the victim. In this era of technology, there must be a new trick these fraudsters have found that make their crimes work.
https://twitter.com/chirchir69/status/1256177859418304512?s=20
Joshua Oigara led KCB responded on the matter by replying to the tweet that their team has responded to the victim’s matter in his private message.
Hi, we note that we are in touch via DM. Kindly check ^CK
— KCB Group (@KCBGroup) May 1, 2020
In April this year, detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Turkana County launched investigating into the loss of Sh22 million from the KCB Bank Lokichoggio branch.
Preliminary investigation shows that Sh22.7 million was lost at the bank between October 2017 and March 2020.
Turkana County Criminal Investigation Officer James Lelia confirmed that a senior manager at the branch was arrested on 2nd April as a key suspect and interrogated before he was released on police bail on Tuesday.
“Even as we still hold the key suspect who may not be taken to court immediately, we also need to trace the whereabouts of a former for interrogation,” the Turkana County Criminal Investigations Officer said.
Mr Lelia said the prosecution of the case will take a long time because of the coronavirus outbreak.
