Sh200 million fraud suspect to remain behind bars
The court has allowed police to detain fraud suspects Sergeant Grace Nyamohanga, alias Nasra, Michael Murimi Sasi, and David Masiaga to be detained at Muthaiga police station for two weeks so as to allow for investigations into their case to be completed.
In justifying her ruling that was delivered virtually, Kiambu law Court Chief Magistrate Patricia Gichohi said police had satisfied her on the reasons for the suspects to remain in detention.
The senior sergeant who is attached to Lang’ata Women’s Prison has been accused of being the face of a scheme that led to Kenyans losing millions of shillings while offering fake promises of job opportunities at government institutions.
Inspector of Police Nicholas Ole Sena Through a miscellaneous application told the court that he was investigating forgery, making a document without authority, and obtaining money by pretenses, among other cases related to money laundering.
In his affidavit, the officer noted that on May 12, 2021, a report was made at the DCI complaint section that Nasra was allegedly leading a syndicate organization that purported to give job opportunities to Kenyans.
During the arrest of her accomplices, detectives recovered 223 pieces of 100- dollar bills equivalent to 2,400,000.
Also recovered were among others, fake government parastatals and Government institutions employment calling letters bearing different names, more than 20 original academic certificates in all levels of education bearing different names, more than 20 National ID Cards, six NSSF Cards, five NHIF cards, six mobile phones of different make and one laptop.
The investigating officer told the court on Monday that the equipment had been subjected to forensic analysis to enable them to retrieve more evidence.
He also believes the three are part of a syndicate still at large, and efforts to arrest them were ongoing.
He cautioned that if they were released on bond or cash bail, they would interfere with the investigations by intimidating the prospective witnesses who were yet to record their statements.
The officer said there were more than 60 other complainants expected to present themselves at the DCI headquarters after the suspects were exposed on the DCI-Kenya Twitter handle for statement recording. The case will be mentioned on June 14, 2021.
By the time the matter was brought to the limelight by the DCI, Nyamohanga and her team had allegedly defrauded job seekers Sh200 million.
“The suspects have conned job seekers from across all levels of education and academic disciplines, including graduates in mathematics, computer science, and microbiology,” the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said in a tweet on Friday.
Nyamohanga surrendered to detectives attached to the Serious Crimes Unit on Sunday after DCI launched a search for her.
“The prison warder believed to be in charge of a wide syndicate that has swindled Kenyans of hundreds of millions of shillings, on fake promises of being offered job opportunities, has surrendered to our detectives,” DCI boss George Kinoti said.
At least three victims had by Saturday recorded statements with the police over the matter.
One is said to be a woman from Kiambu County who was swindled out of more than Sh800,000 after being promised that her three children would be offered jobs at the National Hospital Insurance Fund, the Nairobi Metropolitan Services, the Kenya Ports Authority.