DTB Bank Manager Sophia Mbogo charged with three counts over DusitD2 attack

Bank Manager faces the music over helping Dusit terror attack

Mumbi Mutuko

February 20, 2019 1:03 PM

Dusit attack funds

Dusit attack suspects at the Milimani Law Courts

Diamond Trust Bank manager Sophia Mbogo has been charged with aiding the DusitD2 business complex terror attack which claimed the lives of 21 people.

Ms Mbogo who heads the Eastleigh branch of DTB bank was charged for failing to flag the suspicious ksh34.7mn transactions.

Diamond Trust Bank Eastleigh branch manager Sophia Njoki Mbogo Pulse Live Kenya

Charges read to her indicated that she aided and abetted a terrorist act by failing to report suspicious transactions amounting to Sh34.7 million suspected to have been used to fund the attack.

Accomplice

Police accuse her, as the branch boss, of allowing huge sums of monies to be cashed within a very short time, without question.

She also faced four counts of failure to report suspicious money laundering acts that occurred between December 4, 2018, and January 5, 2019, at the bank.

The suspect had denied any involvement in the DusitD2 complex attack and requested for bail which will be argued on Wednesday.

In a filed affidavit, Ms Mbogo asserted that she has never dealt with any of the terrorism suspects, personally or professionally.

Money laundering

Regarding the withdrawal of huge amounts from the bank via M-Pesa, Ms Mbogo argued that the bank serves as an agent of mobile communication service provider Safaricom to release float according to the company's instructions.

Police at DusitD2 during the raid Pulse Live Kenya

She noted that the bank has an agreement with several Safaricom agents to whom it releases float.

Ms Mbogo was charged alongside Hassan Abdi Nur, another suspect, who is said to have registered 52 accounts in the last three months of 2018, 47 of them in October.

According to the prosecution, Nur received Ksh9 million from South Africa, which amount was withdrawn through a specific till number and sent to Somalia.

Mumbi Mutuko