Five ex-MTN employees have been adversely named by an auditor from Grant Thornton as having been involved in mobile money fraud of up to Sh 5b.
New Vision Uganda reports that Jasmine Sha told the Anti- Corruption Court that Patrick Sentongo finance administrator, Angella Ayo, Brian Okurut, Eria Baryamwijuka and Joan Nabugwawo posted fraudulent mobile money transaction leading to loss of money.
She said that they five took advantage of the system to defraud MTN adding that they used 17 MTN fictitious subscribers to defraud the company of sh5b.
Testifying before Justice Lawrence Gidudu it was established that the money would be deposited on fictitious subscribers account and would also be drawn within the shortest time possible.
“We analysed all the fraudulent transactions and related evidence in the form of access logs and audit trails available in the records. We examined the physical records, to the extent available, to correlate the same with the audit trail of the fraudulent transactions. Based on the examinations and correlations, there is unthinkable evidence of direct and indirect involvement,” Sha said.
According to Sha almost all the fraudulent entries in various accounts and subscribers’ account are created and authorised by Sentongo, Ayo, Okurut and Baryamwijuka adding that Nabugwawo being a cashier mobile money public access connived with the other former MTN employees to allegedly steal.
The court was told that Always Uganda Limited withdrew large sums of money as well.
“Money was transferred directly through journals or indirectly out of the fraudulent funds to their accounts and then withdrawn,”Sha said.
The accused are charged with embezzlement, electronic fraud, unauthorized disclosure of access code, neglect of duty, and conspiracy to defraud. All the accused denied the charges.