Airtel Kenya lost US$ 6.7 million through its mobile money platform, in what is being termed as one of the biggest insider theft cases yet.
Airtel Africa, Airtel Kenya’s parent firm, said, “In 2018, incidents of cash control frauds were identified in the Airtel Money operations in Kenya, which involved circumvention of the its controls by Airtel Money employees and resulted in loss of $6.7 million.”
The firm says that while it has employed strict controls to check fraud on its platforms, it cannot fully eliminate the risks posed by its own employees.
It adds, “Additionally, technical or administrative errors could result in customer losses for which the group could be responsible, and the group may be liable for fraud and problems related to inadequately securing group payment systems.”
So far only US $ 860,000 of the stolen amount was recovered through insurance as revealed by an Airtel Africa prospectus.
This news comes after the charging of two Safaricom staff for attempted fraud of around US $ 3 million. The two illegally copied a subscribers data and sent it to an unauthorized person.
Mr Simon Billy Kinuthia and Mr Brian Njoroge Wamatu, however, denied the charges and were ordered to deposit Ksh1 million ($10,000) cash bail each to secure their release.
