Police apprehends Key Suspect over US$40k Bank Robbery

Rwanda Police this Friday arrested a man believed to be major suspect for an attempted robbery of Rwf30.5 million from Kenya Commercial Bank.

A reliable source has told newsofrwanda that the suspect, Gilbert Mazimpaka, was this afternoon rounded up by Police at Bank of Kigali, after he had falsified a transaction from a client’s account belonging to a Kenya Commercial Bank client to another fake account in Bank of Kigali.

“On Wednesday, this man (Mazimpaka) came to KCB branch offices with a forged cheque. He requested for a transfer of Rwf30.5 million from our client’s account registered in his names,” said the source who preferred anonymity told our newsmen.

“After the transaction, the real account owner received an SMS alert and called us immediately,” the source said

When the Bank of Kigali officials were contacted, they confirmed the suspect was arrested by Police.

“When KCB discovered its client had lost the money, they contacted us and we immediately blocked the recipient’s account. We informed KCB which alerted Police that came and arrested him (suspect),” a top BK official said but did not provide more details.

“The suspect was arrested around 1pm at Bank of Kigali main branch,” added the source.

According to KCB official; the bank has registered over five similar cases in the past 7 months.

Police has been hunting several cyber-security criminals robbing millions through fake bank accounts.

In 2014, a Nigerian citizen, Seheed Olalejan Adebayo entered Rwanda and connected with John Ruzige Gasana, a Rwandan and registered a company; Miriensol Holdings Limited claiming that they would be offering travel and tour services.

According to Police, unlike the fact that the business may have looked at authentic at a face value, it was actually a scam.

Following the registration of the company, Gasana went to one of the local banks and acquired a countertop card named ‘Point-of-Sell’ (POS) device – a machine used to process financial transaction from one bank account to another using a credit or debit card.

Police said that in less than a week, the tour and travel company had received US$175,800 (Rwf130million) from several POS payments all coming from several individuals across Europe.