14 DAY TRIAL // A total of 77 Chinese nationals were arrested in Kenya this week after the police found at the house they rented a sophisticated cyber center capable of throwing the communication systems of the country into disorder.
The command center could also be used for illicit financial purposes such as compromising bank accounts, M-Pesa accounts, and ATM machines.
A fire led the police to the discovery
The Chinese had entered the country and set up the command post in a rented house in the select Runda estate, one of the suburbs of Nairobi. It is believed that it may be the largest cyber center in Africa.
The entire operation was discovered by accident, when police came to the house to investigate a fire incident, which killed one of the hackers. It appears that the Chinese were all gathered in a room with the advanced communication equipment.
According to Ndegwa Muhoro, head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in Kenya, the fire was started by a server on the premises.
According to the Daily Nation publication in Kenya, 37 individuals found on the premises were arrested on Tuesday and then an additional 40 were taken by the police for investigation; they have all been charged for the illegal activity conducted at the Runda estate house.
A police spokesman said that the individuals did not speak English and had no papers to prove that they entered the country legally.
Hackers worked with sophisticated equipment
The chief of the DCI Kenya visited the premises on Wednesday and said that finding the equipment and disrupting the operation was a breakthrough in the fight against cybercrime.
The Kenyan newspaper says that the Chinese ambassador in the country, Liu Xianfa, has been called at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give an explanation about how his nationals were able to set up and manage such a huge center.
The type of equipment seized by the authorities consisted of telephones and computers connected to broadband Internet connection. The rooms were sound-proofed and had mattresses in the windows to keep out prying eyes.
It is also unclear whether the hackers’ mission in Kenya was purely for financial gains or had a different motivation.
However, it is believed that they were behind the flurry of digital attacks in the country, which would suggest the former theory, especially since one of the servers contained transaction records of billions of shillings, The Standard reports.
At the moment, there is no information that the cybercriminal activity has decreased since the Chinese hackers’ arrest though, and they have not been connected to a particular attack.
