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Man charged with M-PESA fraud


A man suspected of colluding with others to defraud an M-PESA agent of Sh42,170 while pretending to be a Safaricom employee has been arraigned in court after escaping a lynch mob in Kilimani, a Nairobi suburb.

Kennedy Maina is accused of defrauding the attendant of the money along Kindaruma road in Kilimani on July 13, 2021, after claiming the shop was operating illegally because it was not properly registered.

He was nearly killed by a mob justice after it was discovered he had lured the shop attendant into sending the money to co-conspirators falsely claiming to be Safaricom staffers.

The attendant borrowed the money from traders in the neighbourhood and sent it to Maina’s accomplices before the neighbours found out what was happening to her.

Interestingly, Maina did not benefit from the fraud as all the money was sent to his accomplices who were using him and he was arrested alone. He could not help the police trace them.

Maina and accomplices had demanded Sh250,000 from the company failure to which their shop will be deregistered and closed leading to loss of the money deposited as operational capital.

Maina denied the charges before senior principal magistrate Derrick Kutto of Kibera law courts.

He was freed on a Sh50,000 bond and an alternative cash bail of Sh70,000.

The case will be mentioned on August 3.