Three men have been arraigned in court over fraudulent transfer of Sh 1.6 million after theft of a phone at Blah Blah club in Westlands, Nairobi.

Erick Muturi Mwangi, Martin Njuguna Itemo and Erick Gitonga were arrested on 22nd February and arraigned before Principal Magistrate Rose Ndobi the following day.

In an application seeking to detain the trio for 10 days to conclude investigations, the police claim that by the time of arrest, the suspects had already transferred Sh 1.6 million from his bank.

According to an affidavit by Corporal Johnes Nyangige, the complainant claimed that on 7th February 2025, he went for refreshments with his friends at the said club.

However, at around 4.00 am he noted that his Iphone 13 was missing and later reported the matter to Safaricom customer care for them to block his simcard and phone.

Shockingly, Safaricom informed him that his mobile phone number had already made some transactions amounting to Sh 1,640,000 from his Standard Charted bank account to a KCB bank account before the money was spread to different mobile phone numbers.

The money was allegedly sent to different Mpesa numbers and till numbers prompting the complainant to report the matter to the police.

During the arrest, police managed to recover some simcards from respondents which were registered by different persons.

The said simcards, mobile phones and a laptop recovered from the respondents are suspected to have been used during the incident, and need to be forwarded to DCI Headquarters for forensic analysis.

The court heard that releasing the on bond may interfere with the pending/ongoing investigations.

The court heard that the suspects may interfer with witnesses and arresting of accomplices who ran away and disappeared after committing the offence.

However, the magistrate ruled that no evidence was produced to show that the suspects would interfere with investigations.

“It is the role of the court to balance the rights of a suspect and public interest,” the magistrate ruled.

The court found that detaining the three would be prejudicial to them and released them on a cash bail of Sh 50,000 and two contact persons.

The case will be mentioned on 5th March 2026.