Ruth Muthoni Kamau: Did her Equity Bank Heist of Sh1.5B in 2025 Earn her a Microfinance Bank?
Fresh court filings show she allegedly used a proxy, Joel Mwangi Wainaina, to buy his way into Fanikisha Microfinance Bank with a 49% stake worth Sh478M — funded, investigators suspect, by the stolen cash.
Ruth Muthoni Kamau — the woman DCI accuses of masterminding the Sh1.5B Equity Bank heist in 2024 — didn’t just walk away with the money. Fresh court filings show she allegedly used a proxy, Joel Mwangi Wainaina, to buy his way into Fanikisha Microfinance Bank with a 49% stake worth Sh478M — funded, investigators suspect, by the stolen cash. Founder Geoffrey Gathimbu says Wainaina then “completely absconded,” Muthoni allegedly seized de facto control, hijacked the digital platforms, changed server access codes, and used the lender’s banking infrastructure to move funds. Meanwhile she’s picked up a Sh96M Runda mansion, a Sh60M stake via Sonara Capital, a Range Rover and a Lexus — and the share registry itself is now accused of being forged to dilute the real owner’s stake from 1,530 shares to 330. This isn’t just an alleged heist anymore. It’s a blueprint for laundering stolen bank money into a licensed microfinance institution — hijacking the very system meant to serve small borrowers to launder the proceeds of defrauding a bank DCI’s Banking Fraud unit is now investigating both threads. If proven, this is precisely the kind of institutional capture that regulators are supposed to catch before a bank heist becomes a functioning microlender.
