AfriPulse
For the second time in a row, an Eldoret court pushed back the plea taking for two main suspects tied to a 10 million shilling fraud at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH).
The suspects, Khamisi Hussein Akida and Jane Wangari Wachira, a former hospital staffer, will now return to court on March 12, 2026. On that date, they will answer to charges of “conspiracy to defraud and violation of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act.”
Investigators believe the scheme ran from January 1, 2025, to February 9, 2026. During this period, the fraudsters targeted vulnerable patients traveling from across the country to seek care at the Uasin Gishu facility.
As the case opened before Chief Magistrate Peter Ndwiga, investigating officers filed a formal request for more time. They told the court they need the extra window to wrap up their probe into the “conspiracy to defraud charges against the two suspects.”
Lead investigator Edwin Chirchir, based at the Naiberi police station in Ainabkoi, informed the court that his team still needs to send bank and M-Pesa records to the DCI headquarters in Nairobi. He noted that because the suspects used mobile phones for their transactions and messages, the records require specialized forensic analysis.
Meanwhile, Eldoret detectives are working to take down a sophisticated crime ring that allegedly stole over 10 million shillings from MTRH. The group reportedly siphoned the funds by manipulating the government’s eCitizen payment portal.
DCI officers from Ainabkoi apprehended the pair after hospital management reported the 10 million shilling loss to the police.
This bold scheme suggests a significant security gap in the government’s main digital payment system. It has also raised serious concerns about whether insiders at Kenya’s second-largest referral hospital helped orchestrate the heist.
The court heard that following his arrest, Akida led detectives to Ms. Wachira and identified her as his partner in the scheme.
According to the investigating officer’s affidavit, the suspects used a clever bait-and-switch to bypass the official government paybill, 222222. The duo reportedly convinced patients to pay their medical bills in cash or through personal M-Pesa numbers.
They then allegedly accessed the eCitizen platform to “clear” the patients’ bills on the system without depositing a single cent into the hospital’s account. Because the system flagged the bills as “paid,” the hospital issued official receipts and discharged the patients, leaving the facility with a massive financial deficit.
The scheme unraveled on February 5, when an internal audit at MTRH uncovered the 10 million shilling discrepancy. The hospital officially reported the matter to the MTRH Police Patrol Base on February 9.
Police suspect these two represent only the tip of the iceberg in this multi-million shilling heist. Detectives are now pursuing senior officials within the hospital’s Finance and ICT departments, suspecting they provided the technical “backdoor” necessary to pull off the fraud.
Source: NairobiWire.com | Read the Full Story…
