On the afternoon of June 23, Gladys Akinyi sat down to transfer Sh5,000 from her bank account to her M-Pesa wallet, an ordinary transaction she had carried out countless times before.

Instead of the balance she expected, she was met with a shock that has since turned into weeks of unanswered questions. Her bank balance indicated that half a million shillings had disappeared from her Co-operative Bank account.

According to bank records she later obtained, the money had been transferred two days earlier, on Sunday, June 21, at exactly 12.57pm to an account belonging to Ghala Kuu Digital Distributors Limited.

Ms Akinyi insists she never authorised the transaction.

Nearly a month later, the 34-year-old is still trying to understand how the money left her account, why she never received an alert notifying her of the transfer and why the bank's investigations concluded that she was the one who initiated the transaction.

"I did not transfer that money. If I had, why would I report the matter to the bank two days later? It simply doesn't make sense," she said.

The disputed transfer has now drawn in Co-operative Bank, the Banking Fraud Investigation Unit (BFIU) and detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, highlighting the growing challenge of resolving electronic banking disputes in an era where transactions are completed within seconds but investigations can take months.

Gladys Akinyi says half a million shillings disappeared from her Co-operative Bank account without her authorization.

Photo credit: NMG

Ms Akinyi says she opened her Co-operative Bank account in 2023 and primarily used it as a savings account. Nothing appeared unusual on June 21.

She says she remained at home that Sunday and had her mobile phone with her throughout the afternoon. Unlike previous withdrawals or deposits, she says no SMS notification was received confirming that Sh500,000 had been transferred out of her account.

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It was only when she attempted to send Sh5,000 to her M-Pesa account on June 23 that she realised something was terribly wrong. Her account balance had drastically reduced.

A review of the account showed that Sh500,000 had already been wired to Ghala Kuu Digital Distributors Limited.

Startled, she immediately contacted the bank's customer care line before also calling the branch manager who had previously handled her account but had since been transferred.

She says she was assured the matter would be handled urgently and advised to visit her branch. During the process, she discovered that the email address associated with her banking profile had reverted to an older address, something she says raised further concerns about the security of her account.

By the time she received the advice, banking hours had elapsed. She therefore visited her branch the following day, June 24.

"I visited the branch, filled out a complaint form and spoke with the branch manager to confirm my grievances. The manager informed me she would escalate the matter to the concerned unit and get back to me," she wrote in her formal complaint to the bank.

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In the complaint, she asked the bank to investigate the disputed transaction, trace the funds, recover the money and restore it to her account.

She also requested to be furnished with the investigation findings and informed of measures taken to prevent similar incidents.

"I trust that your office will treat this matter with the urgency it deserves, as it involves fraud and financial loss," she wrote.

Shortly after, Ms Akinyi also reported the incident to detectives at the Railways Directorate of Criminal Investigations, where she was also advised to lodge a separate complaint with the Banking Fraud Investigation Unit (BFIU).

She says she believed that identifying the recipient account would make it easier for investigators to trace the money before it disappeared through the banking system.

Confident that the authorities would quickly establish what had happened, she returned home expecting arrests and recovery of the funds.

Instead, she says, she later received a phone call from the bank informing her that preliminary investigations had reached a very different conclusion.

"I was told that I personally transferred the money to Ghala Kuu Digital Distributors Limited. How is that possible? I would never transfer such an amount and then forget about it before reporting it to the bank," she said.

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The bank, Ms Akinyi said, informed her that its systems showed the transaction had been authenticated using her own biometrics.

She disputes that finding, maintaining that she neither initiated nor authorised the transfer. The bank also informed her that after the funds reached the recipient account, they were immediately transferred to four separate mobile money accounts.

One of the mobile phone numbers identified by investigators, she says, belonged to an individual banking with Kenya Commercial Bank who allegedly received a significant portion of the transferred funds.

"I thought that once the banks had this information they would communicate immediately, freeze the account and help recover the money," she said.

"So far, I have not received any meaningful update."

The financial loss has had consequences beyond her bank account.

The Sh500,000 had been set aside to contribute towards her mother's airfare to the United States.

Following the disputed transfer, those plans were abandoned as she and her siblings sought alternative ways of financing the journey.

"That is a lot of money. To lose my savings and then be blamed by the bank for it is something I never expected," she said.

BFIU confirmed receiving Ms Akinyi's complaint and says investigations remain active.

An investigator at the Investigation Unit told the Nation that they received the bank’s internal findings, which show that the transaction originated from Ms Akinyi's own device using her registered biometric credentials.

So far, they have not established evidence of a SIM swap, a technique commonly associated with mobile banking fraud.

However, they caution that the investigation remains open and no final determination has been made.

Detectives say they have established that Ms Akinyi was at home during the transaction and was accompanied by her 23-year-old niece.

Investigators are examining all possible scenarios, including whether another individual may have gained access to her mobile banking application while she was occupied on a WhatsApp call using another device.

Officials emphasise that the inquiry is evidence-driven and that no conclusions have been reached regarding any individual's responsibility.

Investigators have also traced the recipient account to Ghala Kuu Digital Distributors Limited, a company they say is duly registered.

Records obtained from the Business Registration Service indicate that the firm's sole director is Wycliffe Omondi.

The BFIU says it has identified his mobile number and is seeking to question him as part of the investigation.

A court order has already been obtained requiring telco Safaricom to provide information that could assist investigators in locating him.

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Should those efforts fail, detectives say they intend to visit the company's registered address.

The case has also drawn attention to the limits of biometric authentication as a safeguard against financial crime.

Investigators note that while fingerprints and facial recognition are designed to strengthen account security, they are not an absolute guarantee against unauthorised access.

If another person successfully registers their fingerprint on a mobile device or gains access to banking credentials, they may still be able to access sensitive applications, including mobile banking platforms.

Whether that occurred in Ms Akinyi's case remains one of the questions investigators are seeking to answer.

Two weeks without getting any further update from the bank, Ms Akinyi reached her lawyers and directed that they draft a demand letter to Co-op Bank seeking for a formal explanation and gave the bank seven days to “rectify the anomaly and have the same amount transferred to the aforesaid account”.

The letter also raised concern that their client’s email address linked to the account had been changed without her consent.

“Take note that if the same is not rectified in the next seven days, we have firm instructions to take legal redress.”

When contacted, Co-operative Bank referred inquiries to its legal department, saying a formal response would be issued on the matter.

An email was sent to the email address given to the Nation by the financial institute’s financial office but there was no feedback as promised by the time of going to press.

As investigations continue, Ms Akinyi says she remains hopeful that authorities will establish exactly how the disputed transaction occurred and whether the money can still be recovered.

For now, she is left with conflicting explanations. She insists she never transferred the money even as the bank's internal investigations indicate the transaction was authenticated from her own device, using her biometrics.

The Banking Fraud Investigation Unit says its investigations are still ongoing.

Until those investigations are concluded, the disappearance of Sh500,000 from Ms Akinyi's account remains a mystery that has upended a family's financial plans and raised fresh questions about the security of electronic banking transactions.

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soketch@ke.nationmedia.com