The judicial hammer looks to have fallen on one of Kenya’s leading operators, Betika, following a DCI forensic WhatsApp communications analysis which flagged a ‘systemic compromise of subscriber data’.
A federal High Court in Kenya on 13 May ruled that a complainant by the name Benedict Kabugi Ndungu had reported a Safaricom data breach to the police in 2019, and to a couple of regulatory bodies, including the Director of Criminal Investigations, Mohamed I. Amin, and the Director General of the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Kenya (GRAK).
Betika, which has been operating under the trading name Shop and Deliver Limited, had obtained data from Safaricom, revealing personal information of up to 29.9 million customers.
Founders George Mburu and Chris Mwirigi, both of whom have been embroiled with local authorities, are now in police detention awaiting legal process.
The data contained highly sensitive information – including users’ full names, national identity card numbers, M-pesa transaction history, geo-location data, IMEI numbers, betting patterns, as well as information regarding deposits and withdrawals.
Both Betika and its detained owners are facing significant legal ramifications, as the disclosure alleged that the decision to obtain data from Safaricom’s ex-employees was to create a purpose-built audience database for predatory marketing.
The charges they face include:
- a case of handling stolen user data, a computer-related fraud activity that attracts at least 20 years of imprisonment
- money laundering
- a conspiracy to commit a felony.
This comes after a similar forensic investigation had led another major Kenyan operator, Odibets, to face criminal prosecution.
Andrew Alingula of Odibets has also been nabbed and detained in police detention in connection to this offence; he is alleged to be a recipient of said data that has been obtained expressly for commercial purposes between June 2018 and May 2019.
Allan Mzungu of MMS Advocates, a Senior Partner at a law firm based in Nairobi, told iGaming Expert: “It is unprecedented that directors of these companies could face criminal sanctions for data-related offences. There is a very real possibility of criminal charges against the directors of these betting companies.
“This level of enforcement of the law, by way of criminal proceedings, if the directors do get charged is a show of how seriously the government, regulators and even the bettors take enforcement of the law,” Mzungu added.
Recent gambling reforms in Kenya have obviously tightened oversight, as the new authority GRAK is now mandated to conduct credible checks, vetting and due diligence on all gambling operations, including licensees, shareholders, directors, owners and up to staff.
The federal government is continuing to put out all stops to ensure gambling is not in any way harmful to its citizens, signalling that any sort of it unsolicited for is highly a punishable offence.
With President William Ruto at the forefront of these reforms, he recently revealed: “We are creating regulations for gambling because many people are depressed. Five million people is a very large number. It cannot be allowed to continue everywhere. We cannot continue like that as a nation.”
Now it seems even the judiciary is following suit, with this clampdown on two of the biggest operators in the East African nation.
