DCI busts Umoja Estate identity theft criminal syndicate

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has arrested a police office Boniface Nthenge and her partner Lucy Syombua who have been stealing identity cards and registering Sim-cards for the purposes of acquiring loans.”A police officer namely Boniface Nthenge stationed at Kitengela and a lady by the name Lucy syombua have been arrested by detectives based at Kiambu. The two are believed to be members of a syndicate that has been fraudulently registering sim cards using stolen identity cards and then using them to acquire loans and other benefits from a leading mobile Service provider”, the DCI announced on their social media pages.The early morning raid nabbed the duo where the lady took the officers to her house in Umoja Estate where the Sim-cards registered under different identities were recovered.”Hundreds of fraudulently registered sim cards and an electronic equipment believed to be used for hacking purposes have been recovered from the lady’s house in Umoja- Nairobi”, the DCI said.The police are now looking for the other suspects for arrests and arraignment.Cases of identity theft and fraudulent registration of sim cards have been on the rise.Data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that Kenyan organisations were hit by about 37.1 million cyber threats in the last three months of 2019 compared to the previous quarter, representing a 47.3 percent increase.Banks lost over Sh18 billion in cyber attacks in 2016, according to an ICT security survey conducted by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and the CA.