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State seizes Sh1.5bn houses, cars and cash from scammers
In recent years, scores of suspected gold scammers have been arrested in Nairobi in a web that includes Bulgarians, Tanzanians, Rwandans, Nigerians and Congolese.
The Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) seized cash and assets such as luxury cars and apartments worth Sh1.547 billion last year from scammers and corrupt public servants in the biggest ever haul of dirty money and properties since 2021.
The agency’s report shows that cash and assets that can easily be converted to money stood at Sh865 million while immovable properties like apartments were worth Sh682 million.
It filed a total of 29 cases, seeking to forfeit assets estimated to be worth Sh530 million.
The assets included 19 motor vehicles, two trucks, one motorbike, 11 apartments and two residential flats.
Also seized for forfeiture is a commercial building, one maisonette, eight parcels of land and over half a billion shillings in bank accounts.
ARA collected a total of Sh26.2 million as rental income from the preserved and forfeited properties during the 2023-2024 financial year.
The country has witnessed a surge in cases of foreign nationals being scammed in gold deals that end up with big sand camouflaged as precious minerals from DR Congo.
Others involved cash siphoned from corrupt dealings involving public servants.
“The agency has made remarkable strides in developing rich jurisprudence in the field of asset recovery, setting important legal precedents that strengthen the fight against money laundering and illicit asset acquisition,” ARA says in the report.
During the same period, the agency says it filed 40 cases for preservation of assets worth Sh527 million.
These include 47 motor vehicles, one trailer, two tractors and five motorcycles.
At Sh1.547 billion, the value of the seized assets marks a jump from Sh651 million in the year to June 2023.
In recent years, scores of suspected gold scammers have been arrested in Nairobi in a web that includes Bulgarians, Tanzanians, Rwandans, Nigerians and Congolese.
The gold scammers are mostly young men who live large and chronicle their exploits on social media.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the official global watchdog, last year placed Kenya on its “grey list” of high-risk countries struggling to combat money laundering, drug trafficking, corruption and terrorism.
It said Kenya mainly faced risks from flows of money linked to terrorism financing from both inside and outside its borders, while cryptocurrencies posed further risks.
FATF was established in 1989 to set international standards on anti-money laundering and combating terrorist financing.
Among the people whose property was forfeited to the State are businessman Anthony Kepha Odiero, who lost more than Sh34 million in US dollars and two high-end vehicles, after the High Court ruled that the mysterious deposits were linked to money laundering.
Mr Odiero has since appealed against the decision.
While directing the businessman to forfeit the money to the government, Justice Patrick J.O. Otieno said it was intriguing that Mr Odiero would travel to European and Asian countries to collect payments in cash and then head back to Kenya just to make bank deposits.
Livingstone Kiptoo Tanui, a former payroll manager in Elgeyo Marakwet, also lost more than 24 parcels of land, two tractors and a motor vehicle, which he acquired from monies stolen from the county by inflating his salary, to the State.
Mr Tanui inflated his salary up to three times and used to pay his spouse Viola Jelagat, from the Elgeyo County government, yet she worked in a different county. The judge said the properties and Sh2.95 million in six bank accounts were proceeds of crime and liable for forfeiture to the State.
In 2023, ARA managed to recover a house in Mirema and a plot in Ruiru belonging to Joseph Kinyanjui, who was jailed for 15 years for trafficking in heroin.
Mr Kinyanjui was arrested on December 7, 2016 in Ruaraka and charged about a week later. Police searched his house and recovered 4,857 grams of heroin valued at Sh14.6 million.
He was sentenced to 15 years in jail and ordered to pay a fine of Sh42 million.
Two air charter service firms linked to a flashy businessman also lost about Sh10.9 million to the State after they were declared proceeds of crime.
The High Court declared the money in four bank accounts belonging to Cullinan Private Jet Corp and Glo-Jet International Limited, associated with businessman Chris Obure, were proceeds of crime and should be forfeited to the State.
ARA reckons that in the year to June 2023 it filed 28 cases seeking the preservation of assets worth Sh196 million.
Among the properties preserved were 22 motor vehicles, five motorcycles, four parcels of land and two developed properties. It had 18 cases related to assets forfeiture worth Sh455 million.
The forfeited assets were 12 motor vehicles, three developed properties, one parcel of land.
During the same period, Sh18.1 million was collected as rental income from the preserved and forfeited properties.
Some of the seized high-end vehicles were offered to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for use.
The agency through the Office of the Attorney-General has enhanced Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) and other forms of international cooperation to enable it to use the information to trace, locate and repatriate proceeds that might be laundered outside the country, the report adds.
So far, Kenya has signed agreements on recovery and repatriation of proceeds of crime with Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Jersey through the Framework for the Return of Assets from Corruption and Crime in Kenya (FRACCK) agreement, Mozambique and Seychelles.
Negotiations for the frameworks with the United States, Hong Kong, Uganda, Rwanda, Pakistan and India are ongoing.
