Two women suspected to be members of a gang of fraudsters targeting Saccos have been arrested in Kapsabet.
The two were part of a 30-member gang travelling across the country targeting teachers' Saccos.
Gang members use fake identification cards and TSC employment documents to apply for emergency loans from the institutions.
Three members walked to Trans-Elite Sacco with fake teachers' documents together with T-pay (secret password) and applied for loans.
They applied for Sh1.5 million, Sh1.4 million and Sh800,000, claiming they were newly transferred teachers from other counties in the TSC delocalisation exercise.
The society was able to access 'their' payslips via T-pay. However, suspicions were raised after they gave out phone numbers different from those at the TSC headquarters.
Trans-Elite CEO James Sawe said he contacted the teachers whose details the suspects wanted to use to obtain the loans.
“I was surprised one was in Kilifi, another in Embu and the other in Migori. They said they had not applied for a loan…I knew these were fraudsters and acted swiftly to apprehend them,” Sawe said.
Two suspects were arrested inside the Sacco, while the third one escaped by jumping onto a motorcycle.
The two confessed that they were a gang of 30 people with details of practising teachers and that they had made fake identification documents.
“Many teachers across the country could be servicing loans they neither applied for nor received the money after their details were used by fraudsters masquerading as teachers,” Sawe said.
But how the suspects got the T-pay code remains a mystery as the details are with the ICT department of their employer - the Teachers Service Commission.
They were handed over to DCI officers for interrogation and for charges to be preferred against them on Thursday.
Police said the suspects could have raided several Saccos across the country and appealed to those who might have been victims to visit Kapsabet DCI offices.
Edited by R.Wamochie
