NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 29 – A Nigerian national who had attempted to defraud a nut processing company of Sh35.9 million was on Friday charged with offenses of computer forgery and attempted stealing at the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi.
The suspect identified as Endurance Obayan was arrested Thursday evening by detectives at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) as he tried to flee the country.
“When the suspect sensed that his hour of arrest was nigh, Endurance Obayan, was stopped on his tracks as he desperately attempted to board a Nigeria bound flight, to escape from our agents who were hot on his trail,” the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said on Friday.
The DCI said in a statement that the suspect had gained access to the Equatorial Nuts Processing Limited systems based in Nairobi and sent a fake invoice to their client in Australia, demanding payment of Sh35.9 million.
The agency said the email further instructed the client to channel the money to an account in China which alarmed the client who immediately contacted Equatorial Nuts, in a bid to establish whether they had changed their bank details.
The company’s security manager immediately alerted cyber-crime detectives who launched a man hunt for the suspect backed by their Serious Crimes Unit counterparts who nabbed him as he tried to board a Nigeria-bound flight in a desperate attempt to escape from detectives who were on his trail.
“Yesterday afternoon, when the suspect sensed that his hour of arrest was nigh, he hurriedly left his Ruaka apartment headed for the country’s international gateway. He was to catch an Ethiopian airlines flight scheduled for Nigeria, only to be met by mean looking sleuths and immigration officials at the airport, who whisked him to the comfort of our hatchbacks that delivered him at DCI headquarters for questioning,” the agency said.
Several Kenyans and companies have fell victim to fraud owing to the risks brought about by digitization of systems which have often been targeted by tech-savvy fraudsters.
Kenya has been on the global radar due to the case of cyber fraud targeting businesses nationally and internationally through phishing – specifically Business Email Compromise (BEC) – where criminals hack business email accounts and trick enterprise into sharing sensitive information to the attackers who use the date to scam them of millions of shillings.
According to the 2018 Africa Cyber security Report by Serianu, a Pan-African based cyber-security and consulting firm, Kenya lost more than Sh29.5 billion from cyber attacks in 2018. The Communication Authority of Kenya reported that cyber threats rose over 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2019.
In the 2018/2019 report, Kenya detected a total of 51,903,286 total cyber threats and validated and escalated a total 48,664 cyber threats during the period.
