Shocking:Bank ATMs giving out fake notes...

Fake currency has found its way in banks, raising concern from Kenyans who now want the matter investigated and the culprits prosecuted.

A cross-section of people interviewed by the Nation say some of their money withdrawn from automated teller machines had turned out to be fake.

Mr Patrick Gichobe, who runs an M-Pesa stall on Moi Avenue, Nairobi, says in September, a customer walked into his stall to make an M-Pesa transaction of Sh2,000 only for the money to turn out to be fake.

“He tabled a bank ATM receipt. I was hearing this for the first time because often those with fake money say they had been sent by other people or they had been paid after selling an item. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do because the money was still unacceptable,” Mr Gichobe told the Nation on Friday.

Mr Norbert Wandera has declined transactions at his electronics shop on Kimathi Lane three times.

“They (potential clients) claimed they had either been sent or just withdrawn from a bank. I suspect it could be a syndicate which sends people with fake monies to try and see if it could be accepted. But my long experience in handling money has saved me,” he said.

“The idea that one could withdraw money from an ATM only to turn out fake looked surprising. But last week, a colleague pulled a one-thousand note from an ATM on Kenyatta Avenue and when he walked into a supermarket to buy a drink minutes later, cashiers rejected the money arguing it wasn’t genuine. When he produced a receipt, they argued, while punching holes in the note, the excuse was now

overused, and told him to go show it to the bank which later disowned the note.”

When contacted, head of Banking Fraud Investigations Unit Joseph Mugwanja said he was in a place where he could not comment. He asked us to contact him on Monday.

Mr Habil Olaka, the chief executive of the Kenya Bankers Association could neither respond to our calls nor text messages.

According to figures in a report released last Wednesday by audit firm Deloitte, most of the money banks lose is a result of collusion between bank staff and outsiders.

The report, Financial Crimes Survey Report 2013: Where is the exposure? shows that cash theft is most prevalent in Kenya at 72 per cent compared to cheque, money laundering or credit card fraud.

“In Kenya where banks lost Sh655.6 million, researchers found that non-management personnel were more likely to steal the money or collude and banks were reluctant to publicise the incidents.

Most banks in the country hire security agents to reload ATMs for them. This is where the collusion starts as they replace genuine notes with false ones.

How false money gets to your ATM (According to the report)

-Abundant liquidity in the banking industry lures criminals to insert fake notes in the system

-There is weak financial crimes control and those whose hands are found in the cookie jar are given lenient punishments

-Bank managers and their staff are casual towards financial crimes and give little attention to these incidents.

-Internal staff circumvent IT controls and Banks are pervasive about use of technology to secure money

-There is lack of platform to share these incidents of financial crimes

-nation.co.ke

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Prophetess denies bringing 'Jesus' to Nairobi...

Kenyans woke up to the unexpected return of Jesus Christ on June 11, 1988… and in Nairobi’s Kawangware, no less.

A few years earlier, Prophetess Mary Akatsa, founder of the Jerusalem Church of Christ had prophesied that the Messiah would drop by her church.

Unprepared Nairobians in Kawangware wept, sprinted hither and thither while others fell in supplication. After all Jesus had promised more than 2000 years earlier that he would “return like a thief.”

And here he was: Tall, barefoot, bearded, dressed in white robes, his head covered in a kilemba. Strange, sporadic light shorn on top of his head, feet and body. The four feet and six inches frame of the self-proclaimed prophetess stood next to ‘Jesus’ as the crowd went haywire, shouting “Jesus of Nazareth!”

‘Jesus Christ’ turned to the more than 6,000 worshippers at Muslim Village, Kawangware, and said in clear Kiswahili: “I shall come back and bring a bucketful of blessing for all of you,” as Kenya Times newspaperreported on June 12.

But Mary Sinaida Dorcas Akatsa now denies she brought Jesus Christ to Nairobi. She says the Indian looking man with long beards had “only came for prayers.”

“But my enemies used his presence to spread rumours and make me look bad in the eyes of the public,” says Prophetess Akatsa, who rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s through her prayers and healing to the sick and disabled.

Fake Jesus aside, Akatsa’s Jerusalem Church of Christ is facing myriad issues. Akatsa’s first husband Franco Akatsa died a few years ago and her current husband of 12 years, she alleges, has been plotting to   oust her from a church she has led for 27 years, besides having wrangles over church properties.

Akatsa claims to have received death threats from her estranged husband for which she has recorded a statement with Police at Muthangari Police Station.

 “My husband ran this church since last year with five other women, but is now forming his own church as they could not persevere the strict discipline required here,” explains Akatsa.

Among things banned by her church includes not marrying a fellow Church member and adultery.

Akatsa accuses Mulinge of unfaithfulness, adding, “Together with others they stole the wheelchairs and walking sticks so that they can use to display them to people with an intention of winning worshippers whom they will lie to that they had healed people before. But I can assure you that they will fail miserably and be punished by God.”

The Jerusalem Church of Christ also bans tithing and offering which Akatsa says offended the breakaway group that sees it tithing as a fast route to wealth.  

There are also no crusades and worshippers only attend services that have made many not to understand how she operates.

There are also no crusades and worshippers only attend services that have made many not to understand how she operates.

“I spend Sundays at church and weekdays at my various farms and use the harvests for catering for church members and the poor,” says Akatsa who is a no nonsense disciplinarian with her worshipers as Jesus was with his disciples. 

 Efforts to talk to Mulinge over the allegations levelled against him were futile as this cellphone was still off by the time we went to press. 

-The Nairobian

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Ladies:Don't take your Man to such places....

Why did she tag along her boyfriend to the salon?”

 My hairdresser said this under her breath as some lady walked into the hair salon with her man in tow.

At first, my hairdresser and I thought he was dropping her and was going to leave right after.

However, to our shock and without batting an eyelid, the man pulled a chair right next to his girlfriend. 

He spent half the time busy on his phone, playing games.

Trust me, it was a tear-jerking sight. How does a sober, grown up man chill out with his girl in the salon? I know they say spending time together spices things up, but salon is a no-go zone for the menfolk! 

Furthermore, what happened to giving each other a bit of space?

Look, there are places couples should never be seen together:

The hair salon

Let’s admit a lot happens here. From tongue lashing to gossiping about anything in the sun!

Yeah. It’s the only place a woman will feel safe without her weave and uncombed hair.

It’s a place where the whole make-over happens and it hurts when your man sees the pain you undergo to get your eyebrows tweezed…and the legs all smooth and shiny.

   What’s the point of a man looking all distressed as he waits for you to decide which weave to put?

Gentlemen, unless your baby mother has asked you to accompany your daughter to the hair salon, don’t spend any time in the salon waiting for your girlfriend to get her hair done. Men should only drop a woman to the salon and pick her up later.

-The Nairobian

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Nigeria stampede....28 killed, 200 wounded

The stampede occurred at the end of a religious vigil at the Holy Ghost Adoration Ground in Anambra State.

The stampede took place at about 5:00 PM on Saturday.

More than 100,000 people are said to have gathered at the venue of the incident 

Anambra Governor Peter Obi had been at the event and later returned to visit the injured in hospital.

"We have visited the hospital in Nkpor and found 17 corpses that were brought in from the scene of the disaster," spokesman Mike Udah told AFP news agency.

-citizennews

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Shocking: Man gets hand stuck in loo trying to retrieve wedding ring

A man’s desperate attempt to retrieve his wedding ring that had fallen down a squat toilet ended in more pain after he got his hand stuck down it.

Zhang was unable to free himself from the loo in Quanzhou, in China’s Fujian province, after getting it caught.

He had to suffer further embarrassment when firefighters were called in to help him, but this probably paled in comparison to what he would have endured if his wife had found out he’d lost the ring.

Zhang, who had taken off his ring to have a shower, was discovered stuck in the lavatory by his colleagues at work after they heard his screams.

They tried to free their fellow worker with some soapy water but failed and had to call in reinforcements.

Fire crews disassembled sections of the floor in order to free Zhang

-standardmedia

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Yes be aware, daktari can easily make looters eat grass

There’s only one foolproof way of ensuring that victims of the wanton looting that was the Westgate fiasco get full compensation while the thieves get exposed for their heinous crime.
No, I don’t mean that we create a tribunal to probe the matter, not at all. We should not go into commissions of inquiry either. Kenyans have lost faith in commissions since we paid Waki to look into the post-election violence and yet up to date his famous envelope is lost somewhere between The Hague and Nairobi.
Don’t even listen to Interior Cabinet Secretary that the best way to catch the thieves is to bring in forensic experts.
Let forensics first determine whether the terrorists were male or female. We in this country have our own proven methods of catching thieves. We just enlist the services of one of the many witchdoctors swarming the villages and remote corners of this country.

Expert from Coast

If we are to hire an expert from, say, the Coast, you can be assured that the thieves will suddenly find themselves sufficiently philanthropic to return all they stole to their owners. We could even bring in an expert from Loliondo due to the gravity of the matter.
Media reports indicate the possibility of high calibre thieves having been involved in the heist and we do not want to embarrass the sovereignty of our nation. Rumours closer home are persistent that the culprits may be none other than the people we pay through the nose to guarantee the security of our lives and property might have been compromised by the total absence of al-Shabaab or anyone else for that matter in the mall.
Since until we solve this mystery, everyone is a suspect, we shall begin by traditionally screening General Karangi’s boys and IG Kimaiyo’s people. We shall obviously unearth so much from the rubble atWestgate. 
The Dakatary from Loliondo will first and foremost require that some money be sent to his M-Pesa account as he does not work and then collect later.
After that, all the commandos who were involved in the Westgaterescue mission will be required to line up in a special parade at their barracks in full battle regalia minus their AK 47s.

Unleash witchdoctor

After a pep talk about integrity and courage of an officer, the good general will unleash the witchdoctor to the soldiers. This is the point from where the general and IG will start taking note of any emotional changes in their boys.
Those who profusely sweat out after seeing the witchdoctor will be allowed time to confess instead of putting everyone through the unnecessary trouble of an elaborate ritual.
Dressed in monkey skin attire and waving a flywhisk, the Daktary shall descend upon them like a bolt from the blue making them shake in their boots.
“Wangwana!” he shall scream out at them, “If you walked into Westgatecarrying a gun and left the place with a Nakumatt paper bag you have one chance to confess before I make you chew grass like Museveni’s cows.”
At the mention of grass, the soldiers ‘wataanza kutazamana’ (looking at one another) like the disciples of Jesus when they heard a traitor was amongst them. That is when the lily-livered one will start spilling the beans on their colleagues.
“Daktary woiye, why are you picking on us yet we did not loot?” one man will moan.
“All we did Daktary was window shop the displays in the jewellery store,” one of them will claim.

“Tosha!” Daktary will bellow, “All of you line up and take a cup of my special herbal concoction from Loliondo and we shall soon determine the thieves.”
They will line up in single file. No sooner shall some take a sip of the potent medicine than they will get down on all fours and start mowing the lawn of the parade ground with their mouths.
Since the Loliondo man is not a joke, others might even bleat like goats while they are at it. It will be quite a spectacle to see, gentlemen of the disciplined forces crawling about eating grass.
To ensure that the disciplined forces do not get embarrassed, the exercise should be conducted in-house, away from the prying eyes of the media so that Kenyans don’t get to see an actual house cleaning exercise of the uniforms.
The only problem, however, is that someone will probably leak footage of the grazing to KTN’s  Jicho Pevu and The Inside Story.
And what a hoot that story would make as Nakumatt decides to set up shop in Timbuktu away from al-Shabaab.

-standardmedia

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