Two suspects of the recent mobile money heist that happened last week have been arrested by police, according to the New Vision.
The arrests come at a time when payments aggregator Pegasus Technologies had a security breach, affecting its client accounts including MTN, Airtel, Stanbic Bank, and we have also come to learn, Bank of Africa. In the wake of the breach, Bank to Wallet transfers, including remittances were suspended until house cleaning is done.
Related: Did your mobile money balance survive the recent Security Breach?
The alleged suspects are employees of Pegasus Technologies were arrested on Wednesday by CID cybercrime detectives and will be probed for the loss of over UGX 10 Billion shillings. The police, however, promise to make more arrests in the coming days.
We have also learnt that after infiltrating the victim accounts, the hackers transferred the money and went on to withdraw it from over 2,000 Mobile Money withdrawal points within 36 hours!
Unverified sources allege that Stanbic lost a tune of UGX 9B, Airtel UGX 4.5B, Bank of Africa UGX 900M while MTN’s loss is unknown but is believed to have lost the biggest chunk.
However, most of the said entities assured their customers that while their aggregator faced a security breach, their respective accounts were not affected and in the process, Bank to Wallet transfers were temporarily suspended.
“Stanbic Bank Uganda, MTN Uganda, and Airtel Uganda inform the public and their customers that on Saturday 3 October 2020, a third-party service provider experienced a system incident which impacted Bank to Mobile Money transactions. All Bank to Mobile Money/Wallet services have since been temporarily suspended.
This system incident has had no impact on any balances on both Bank and Mobile Money accounts.”
Also Read: Why Bank to Mobile Money Transfers are Down for Stanbic Customers on MTN and Airtel
What could have gone wrong?
Allegedly, over 1,2000 registered SIM cards were used to transfer the money to various agents across the country. What remains to be answered is — in whose names were the SIM cards registered?
CID suspects that they could be of dead people or abandoned SIM cards by foreigners, who only come for short stays but the investigation has been extended to the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), the government agency charged with the registry and verification of identities.
