Wheels of Justice
A court will today rule on whether a university student arrested in connection with an alleged Sh11 million hacking fraud involving a betting firm will be detained or not.
Milimani senior principal magistrate Ben Mark Ekhubi on Monday, September 1, directed that Seth Mwabe Okwanyo be held for two days at the Capitol Hill police station pending his ruling today.
The order followed a miscellaneous application by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in which detectives sought to have Mwabe detained for 20 days to facilitate investigations.
Police indicated they are probing a case of unauthorised access contrary to section 14(1) of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act.
DCI officer attached to the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit, Julius Cheruiyot, told the court Mwabe is under investigation in relation to the alleged theft of Sh11 million after a betting firm’s banking system was compromised.
The DCI applied for 20 days to subject the electronic gadgets taken from Mwabe to forensic examination.
“The investigations are ongoing, and we need to subject the electronics we seized from him, which include computers, internet routers, phone motherboards and mobile phones, to forensic examinations,” Cheruiyot told the court.
Lawyers representing Mwabe opposed the application, saying their client is not a flight risk and has a known place of residence.
“We urge the court to release him on a reasonable bail or bond,” the defence team submitted.
Mwabe was taken into custody on August 30, 2025, at about 2 pm in his apartment within Tatu City.
OCS Samson Talaam case
A magistrate court will today conduct a pre-trial in a case where three men pleaded not guilty to orchestrating a
fraudulent SIM swap scheme that targeted former Central OCS Samson Talaam, in
which the public was swindled of their money.
Dennis Masavi Musyimi pleaded guilty to three counts of fraudulently replacing Taalam's phone number and soliciting cash from the public.
The phone was at the time in the custody of the Independent Police Oversight Authority, which was then investigating Taalam over the death of teacher and blogger Albert Ojwang while in a police cell.
Musyimi pleaded guilty to willfully procuring the replacement of the SIM card belonging to Talaam by falsely pretending to be the rightful owner.
Musyimi was charged alongside Amos Nzomo Kimanzi and James Mutemi Munyithya, both of whom denied the charges and are set for pre-trial directions today before senior principal magistrate Dolphina Alego.
The three jointly faced a count of computer fraud contrary to Section 26(1) of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act No. 5 of 2018, for allegedly conspiring to commit the offence.
In addition to the joint charge, Munyithya faced a separate count of unlawful use of an identity card belonging to another person.
