A German and Kenyan national has been taken into custody by detectives for allegedly defrauding a Swiss citizen of over Sh52 million at a hotel in Nairobi’s Parklands area.
In a statement, the DCI stated that the two were getting ready to con their victim out of additional money when the officers from the DCI Operations Support Unit struck.
The DCI claims that the story starts in 2020 or thereabouts.
“The victim fell into the hands of the two scammers after he was informed by his ailing father, who had worked in Ghana, that about twenty years ago, he acquired some property in Ghana, which he later sold and left the proceeds under the custody of a trustee in Ghana.”
Equipped with this knowledge, the DCI stated that the Swiss national set out to find the treasure, made contact with a Ghanaian woman who agreed to serve as his interpreter for the transaction, and went on to meet and communicate with her in 2020.
The woman allegedly stated that he was aware of the man’s previous dealings and that he had verified to him that the revenues from the property sale totaled $62.8 million (Sh8.1 billion), but that the transfer of the funds required the establishment of a special purpose company.
The DCI claimed that the Swiss national had been duped into forming a company that would be used to send the money back to his nation of origin.
“But not before giving tax money and facilitating fees to con artists in Ghana, Dubai, Tanzania, Uganda, and subsequently Kenya “
The German national, who is still being held, allegedly met the Swiss national while she was in Kenya and then hired the Kenyan suspect.
The DCI stated that the Kenyan claimed to be the owner of a security firm that was employed to move and store the cargo, which was purportedly checked and kept in an airport in Nairobi.
The DCI stated that the Swiss citizen would eventually be refused access to the containers, requiring him to provide the suspects over $400,000 (Sh51.6m) in facilitation fees.
“He realized he had been duped after spending a fortune, so he filed a complaint at the Kenyan Mission in Switzerland,” DCI stated.
The Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs forwarded the case to the DCI, who then started the investigations that resulted in the scammers’ arrest.
