Kenyan Man in Hot Soup for Withdrawing Sh800,000 Wrongly Deposited to His Account and using it to Build House

A Kenyan man who withdrew Sh800,000 erroneously deposited to his bank account has been arraigned in court. Morris Murangiri was charged with theft before Embu Chief Magistrate Maxwell Gicheru on Thursday.

The court heard that the accused stole the cash on diverse dates between December 5th, 2019, and January 2nd, 2020, at Family Bank Embu Branch.

The prosecution said the money was supposed to be deposited into John Munene Njeru’s account but it was mistakenly put in the accused's account by a man who bought a parcel of land from Njeru. This was after Njeru accidentally gave the complainant the wrong bank account number.

Without caring to find out who made the deposit, Murangiri withdrew the cash on diverse dates before the complainant discovered the mistake he made. The court was told the accused person spent the cash on building a house before he was traced and arrested.

Murangiri pleaded guilty to committing the offense and applied to be allowed to repay the amount in installments from his salary. Magistrate Gicheru dismissed the application on grounds that it would take years to repay the money in installments. He said the accused must return the money quickly or be jailed.

He was freed on a bond of Sh200,000 and surety of a similar amount. The court will make a ruling on the matter on June 22nd.