Top executives at the Kenya Union of Savings & Credit Co-operatives Ltd (KUSCCO) believed to have been involved in the multi-billion scandal have been arrested.
The four Jackline Pauline Atieno Omolo, George Ochola Owino, George Magutu Mwangi, and Mercy Njeru were arrested today by detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in different areas within Nairobi and Nyeri.
They are expected to be charged with Conspiracy to Defraud Contrary to Section 317 of the Penal Code.
They will also be charged with Stealing by Directors or Officers of Companies Contrary to Section 282 of the Penal Code and Making a False document Contrary to Section 347(a) as read with Section 349 of the Penal Code.
Confirming the arrest, Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja said the National Police Service (NPS) is committed to ensuring a thorough and transparent investigation, uncovering the facts that will see all those involved in the scandal brought to book.
Their arrest comes hours after the IG received the KUSCCO forensic audit report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) from the Cabinet Secretary for Cooperatives and MSMEs Wycliffe Oparanya.
The CS called on the IG to ensure proper investigations and arrest for charging in a court of law for those found culpable of theft and cooking financial statements that put Sh13.3 billion of depositors at risk.
The audit by PwC revealed forgery by the top officials at KUSCCO as cooked financial accounts were signed by a dead auditor Alfred Basweti of Omenye and Associates.
This joined a list of other accusations that have been surrounding KUSCCO including unexplained withdrawals, large scales of theft by the executives, and conflict of interest where contracts are issued to companies belonging to the top managers.
The report by PwC retrieved evidence from e-mails, M-Pesa statements, and documents of atleast 23 top managers with eight of them being in the spotlight.
Amongst those put in the spotlight are Managing Director George Ototo, Finance Manager George Owino, and KUSCCO chairman, George Magutu.
With Sh13.3 billion lost, the Umbrella body of SACCOs has been left insolvent with Sh12.5 billion only from a total of Sh24.5 billion that was received from SACCOs.
The report also revealed that the SACCO umbrella body concealed Sh3.7 billion as a way to help them overstate their net earnings.
PwC unearthed that as KUSCCO expanded into real estate and insurance, they came up with a scheme to pay marketers on commission with false entries of up to 3 per cent being recorded totaling Sh1.6 billion being withdrawn while only Sh1.1 billion was paid to the marketers.
It was indicated that Ototo and Owino received Sh107.3 million for bringing business into doubt.