A Safaricom shop [PHOTO/techmoran.com]
A foreigner who was arrested with over US$600 million (Sh70 billion) fake money has revealed that he helped hack into the Safaricom servers last month.
Niger national Mohammed Sani alias Dr Mustafa shocked the court with his testimony that he masterminded the recent Safaricom network outage at from his cell at the Industrial Area Prison in Nairobi.
Last month, there was panic across the country after a nationwide network outage of Kenya's largest mobile network provider.
But the calm and composed Sani told court that the consternation on April 24 was part wider operations of a mobile phone hacking cartel which involves hard-core prisoners, accomplice police officers and prison warders who operate behind prison cells.
"I know everything that happened the day Safaricom shut down; we did it in my prison cell. I have all the evidence and people in prison who are willing to come out as witnesses to support my claims so that they are not seen as baseless allegations," Sani claimed.
The suspect also claimed that police officers smuggled two laptops into his cell and that he used these to hack into systems.
Sani said that the cartel has been operating well behind prison walls until recently when a deal went sour and opted to make everything public.