Cyber criminals have targeted Equity Bank and made away with Sh179 million in what is being described as the biggest heist in card fraud this year....CONTINUE READING
In a leaked letter by the bank’s insider to blogger Nyakundi, Sh179,677,736 was stolen from the bank’s MasterCard GL and transferred to 551 accounts.
In the letter signed by Gerald Munyiri, the Equity’s General Manager Security & Investigations alerting the Banking Fraud Investigations Department at the DCI seeking for help in investigating and prosecuting perpetrators, it details how the hackers moved the money from MasterCard and quickly spread it to the 551 accounts within the bank and through M-Pesa.
How Equity Bank got hacked
“Early 15/04/2024 the bank’s risk department discovered an upsurge of transactions emanating from the banks Incoming Master Card GL. Preliminary investigations revealed that between 09/04/2024 and 15/04/2024, Ksh. 179,677,736/- was paid out from the GL fraudulently to the 551 Equity Bank accounts.” Part of the letter reads.
It continues , “additionally, Ksh. 63,023,983/- was sent to Safaricom Mpesa and Ksh. 39,047,344/- to eleven commercial banks.”
From the letter, Equity has managed to lock meager Sh60 million from looted cash by locking the accounts in question and in talks with Safaricom to trail help in retrieving rest of the cash that was offloaded through M-Pesa..<<CONTINUE READING>>
