Monday, October 23, 2023 – “ALAFU, if I may ask, do people still buy second-hand phones? Imagine if you were caught with the phone of that girl from Pwani University. This reminds me of a guy who used to have an Mpesa Shop in Kiambu Town, Kangangi Market.
This guy went to apply for a certificate of good conduct after receiving a job offer in Qatar, just before the COVID lockdown. After having his fingerprints taken, he left the DCI offices and went home. It was on a Friday. The following Saturday, he spent his time at his other shop in Kirigiti.
Let me tell you Maina, the next day, a Sunday, this guy was awakened by a group of armed DCI officers. Confused, he asked them why they were there, and as usual, he was told he would need to explain himself. He was quickly placed in a Subaru and taken to Karura offices. By the way, he was arrested along with his wife, who had given birth just a week earlier.
As he was being arrested in Kiambu, another group of officers was arresting his elderly mother in a village called Ithe Kahuno, I believe it’s in Nyeri county. Nobody knew what was happening until all their phones were confiscated, and officers began questioning them separately.
It turns out that a customer had gone to one of their Mpesa shops and purchased a Safaricom line. The guy’s wife had registered it and used her own phone to test if the line was working. After a few months, this guy’s mother lost her phone, and he decided to give her that specific handset since he had several other phones.
Unbeknownst to them, the SIM card registered and tested on that phone had been linked to several crime scenes under homicide investigation. By the time I met this guy at Kiambu Law Courts, he had closed down his shops, the family was selling their only piece of land, and his mother was in the hospital. She passed on later.
I can’t recall how the cybercrime detectives forensically connected this guy to the ‘fugitive’ who was still on the run, but one thing was certain. The SIM card used to threaten a person who would later be found dead was registered and used on this phone, which had been used by the three in at different times. Mother, son and daughter-in-law were now linked to a murder they knew nothing about.
That’s why it’s advisable to never let anyone use your phone. Even your spouse could set you up. If someone asks to use your phone to make a call because they can’t reach the person or are out of credit, be cautious. It’s better to run or give them 20 bob of credit, even though 10 bob can buy credit these days.
You see those old phones you give kids to play with as toys, imagine what would happen if that phone landed at a dumpster and get collected by these street boys, they repair and use it. Kidogo kidogo you’re arrested na ukweli unakumbuka you used to have a Samsung sijui what…? Utajitoa? Kindly share this message widely, you might save a person.
By Simon Mwangi Muthiora.
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