Bank employee jailed for stealing Sh4m from customer account

ELDORET, KENYA: Eldoret court has sent a former bank employee to a three-year jail for stealing Sh4 million from a client’s account

Timothy Kosgei appeared before Senior Principal Magistrate Harrison Barasa over the charges and failed to convince the court to set him free of the charges.

Charges against Kosgei stated that he made unauthorised withdrawals from a bank account of Anne Jepkemboi at the Co-operative Bank in Eldoret Town within Uasin Gishu County.

The prosecution had lined up four witnesses to testify against him.

Jepkemboi told the court that in July 28, 2016, she was given Sh 3 million being her late husband’s pension money.

She told the Magistrate that she sent Sh 700,000 to her mother-in-law and used the remaining Sh 300,000 to pay school fees for her children.

She told the court that the remaining Sh 2 million was placed under the Treasury bill account for three months, which later in October 8, 2016 matured to an interest of Sh 30,000. She then later re-invested the money in the same Treasury bill.

In December 2016, Jepkemboi is said to have received Sh 1.9 million from Department of Defense (DOD), where her late husband used to work.

“I invested Sh 1.5 million in buying the treasury bills this was to mature in six months, however I realized that the Sh 2 million I had invested in treasury bills had disappeared,” she testified.

Six months later, Jepkemboi realized that the Sh 1.5 million that she had invested had also disappeared upon maturity.

Following the two incidents, she went ahead and obtained her bank statements, which confirmed her fears. She then went to the bank manager who checked and found that only Sh185 was in the account.

They later agreed with the bank manager Dennis Kimosop to report to the police and upon investigation, they found out that Kosgei had a hand in the disappearance of the money without Jepkemboi’s knowledge and consent.

Kimosop told the court that after Jepkemboi had raised the complaint, they conducted an internal investigation and discovered that Kosgei had used his password to access Jepkemboi’s account then withdrew the money.

In his defense, Kosgei told the court that it was impossible for such huge amount to be withdrawn without being authorized as there were internal control mechanism to curb such transactions and one such measure was that all withdrawals above Sh 300,000 must be authorized by the operations manager.

The prosecution preferred the charges against Kosgei stating that the evidence presented before court overwhelmingly demonstrated that the accused person made an authorised access to the complainant’s account and stole the cash.

“This is a case of fraud and there is no way the accused could have followed the laid down procedure as he explained in his defense,” stated the prosecution.

“It is my conclusion that the prosecution has proved its case beyond any reasonable doubt and I find the accused guilty as charged and hereby proceed to convict him to three years’ imprisonment,” said Barasa.