City Lawyer in Court Over Ksh6.8B Money Laundering Scheme, Forgery
A High Court advocate in Kenya was brought before the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Kahawa, Nairobi County, on Friday, facing allegations of forgery, issuing forged documents, and money laundering.
The lawyer was apprehended following extensive investigations by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), initiated after an intelligence report on June 26, 2023, that connected him to these crimes, which occurred on various dates in June 2020.
Investigators from the DCI’s Financial Investigations Unit discovered that the lawyer’s firm had received a staggering Ksh6.8 billion via wire transfers intended for land purchases.
This transaction was structured as a supposed acquisition of a 50-acre parcel of land in Kajiado County, involving a private seller and a company that was acting as the buyer.
Further investigations revealed that the lawyer’s firm represented both the seller and the buyer. The seller had agreed to sell the land for Ksh60,000,000, with an initial deposit of Ksh5,000,000 due within 90 days.
Delving deeper into the case, investigators found that the name of the initial purchaser did not match the entity that transferred the funds to the seller.
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Instead, the money originated from a different company based in Sofia, Bulgaria, which raised suspicions, as this firm primarily dealt in arms sales.
This discovery led authorities to suspect they might have inadvertently uncovered an international arms smuggling and money laundering operation.
However, the funds sent to the advocate’s bank account in Nairobi were quickly rerouted due to non-compliance with the bank’s internal policies and regulatory guidelines regarding money laundering and the reporting of suspicious transactions.
In addition to the aforementioned charges, he is also accused of issuing forged documents and attempting to commit fraud by submitting these documents to the bank to enable the illicit transfer of funds from abroad to Kenya.
The alleged seller has denied signing any documents related to this scheme and has claimed no involvement in the alleged activities.
City Lawyer in Court Over Ksh6.8B Money Laundering Scheme, Forgery
