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Shrewd criminal network steals millions of shillings from ATMs

By Amina Wako April 21st, 2019 1 min read

Approximately Sh11.2 million has been stolen from several Barclays Bank ATMs in the last three days, by what appears to be an organized criminal network.

According to the police, Sh6.29 million was stolen from an ATM at Mutindwa area in BuruBuru. A further Sh4.315 million was stolen from an ATM at Kenyatta National Hospital and Sh1 million from an ATM at Mater Hospital.

A crew commander of G4S, Mr George Ogiro, reported to police that they had on Thursday loaded the ATM machine along Mutindwa Road with Sh7 million.

On Saturday, however, they received information from Barclay’s Bank that the ATM was not operational.

“They opened the machine and found Sh6,290,000 missing,” the police said in a statement.

NO CCTV CAMERA

On visiting the scene, it was established that the ATM was not covered by CCTV cameras.

The second incident was reported by a G4S officer named Wilson Mzedi.

Mzedi reported the incident to the Capital Hill police station in Kilimani, saying the company got a report from the hospital complaining that the ATM was not working.

When the maintenance officer was sent to the site, the crew realized the ATM had been tampered with electronically and Sh4.3 million stolen.

At the Mater Hospital, another G4S officer, Nickson Oluoch, reported that the company was sent to Mater Hospital on Saturday to service a Barclays ATM, but on arrival at 9am, it was found that the machine had been tampered with and Sh1 million withdrawn.

The CCTV at Mater Hospital had also been smeared with petroleum jelly to obstruct the view while the ATM at Mutindwa neither had a CCTV camera nor a security guard manning it.