A man has been charged with personating his dead father in an attempt to access his bank account that reportedly holds millions of shillings.
Francis Mahenia Waweru alias James Waweru Ndegwa, who is a mitumba dealer, was on Wednesday, March 24, charged with one count of personation in a Nairobi court.
The prosecution said that Ndegwa presented himself to the National Bank of Kenya on Harambee Avenue in Nairobi on Tuesday, March 23, 2021, pretending to be his dead father.
According to court records. the accused went to the bank and handed over to the bank staff a digital form for application for mobile banking using his late father's bank account.
On discovery of his intended deceit, the bank security officers seized and interrogated him.
Further investigations showed that the holder of the bank account is dead but when confronted with the facts, Ndegwa revealed the deceased was his father.
Ndegwa told authorities that one of his friends, through a phone call, told him that he had a contact at the National Bank who could help him access his late father's money.
His friend picked him from Roysambu and took him to the National Bank headquarters, where he filed the form and gave the documents to customer care.
Upon scrutinizing the documents, the customer care officers had him seized and interrogated.
But Ndegwa said he showed the bank his father's and mother's death certificates but the officers refused to authenticate the documents.
He said he was also in possession of his brother's national ID card as the family desperately needs to access the funds.
According to court documents, his father died in 2018 while his mother died earlier.
His father is believed to have been a wealthy man.
According to sources, the deceased had properties in posh parts of Nairobi, including Lavington and its environs, with income from those properties channeled to the National Bank account.
However, the children of the deceased have not been able to access the funds since his death.
The court released Ndegwa on cash bail of Sh50,000 after he denied the charges before Nairobi Chief Magistrate Martha Mutuku.
