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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Investigations into the hacking of two telecom giants and two banks have established that 1,500 sim cards on which money was transferred were registered in the names of a local company.
A senior police detective at Criminal Investigations Directorate –CID in Kibuli, has told Uganda Radio Network –URN that hackers who illegally accessed Pegasus an aggregator of Airtel, MTN, Stanbic Bank and Bank of Africa transferred the money allegedly more than 10 billion shillings to simcards fraudulently registered in the name of a local company.
The detective said they have interrogated staff at the said company but established that none of its workers participated in the fraudulent registration of simcards that were used in the crime.
However, the cyber team says it was the negligence of the company that gave chance criminals to fraudulently register simcards in their name. The company which CID has preferred to keep a secret allegedly left its details at a stationery shop.
“All our investigations have proven that this company is innocent into this crime. Hackers accessed vital registration details at a stationery shop. Many people are fond of living copies of their documents at stationery shops which is very risky. In this era of technology crime, you must be careful with where you leave your documents,” a senior police detective said.
Early this month, Pegasus technologies reported a case at Jinja road police indicating that there was an unauthorized access to its system. MTN, Airtel and Stanbic Bank later issued a joint statement acknowledging that their aggregator’s systems had been illegally accessed.
Charles Twine, the Spokesperson of the CID declined to comment on the new development.
CID has released the five suspects who had been arrested in connection to the crime. Twine said they could not keep the suspects in cells since investigations are yet to be concluded by the independent digital investigators.
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