Man arrested for conning foreigner over Ksh.800M in fake gold deal

Police in Nairobi have arrested a man over his alleged involvement in the supply of 161,000kg of fake gold, which led to duping a Georgian national of USD 6,090,500 (Ksh.822.2 million).

Frederick Thuranira M'mburi was nabbed by the Operations Support Unit detectives at his home in Utawala's Githunguri area while in possession of fake US currency and about 80kgs of fake gold nuggets.

“M'mburi was arrested on Wednesday night by the Operations Support detectives, in a house where about 23,600 notes (100 denominations) in fake US currency stuffed in two travelling bags and a steel box were found,” the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said in a statement.

“Also seized were the fake gold nuggets in eight green canvas bags weighing approximately 10kg each.”

The DCI revealed that the Georgian believed he was in a multi-million gold deal with a Ghanaian partner, who was supposedly moving the gold consignment from the West African nation to Kenya.

The Ghanaian was reportedly supposed to spend the said amount on the movement of the consignment as well as documentation and storage services on arrival.

“In the multi-million fake gold scam, the merchant of Georgia reported to have traded tonnes of gold bars with a Ghanaian partner through a letter of administration before the High Court of Justice in Ghana, thereafter spending USD 6,090,500 on the movement of the consignment from Ghana to Kenya, documentation and storage services,” DCI explained.

A later probe by the detectives would however unravel that the Georgian had been scammed from the beginning, and that no consignment was ever transported from Ghana to Kenya.

According to the DCI, there exists a syndicate operating between gold-mining nations and Nairobi, which is the transit route to other nations, to con unsuspecting businesspeople.

“Preliminary investigations by OSU detectives reveal that the victim was duped from the word 'Go' by a well-organized ring of scammers whose names and machinations are not new to court records and that no such amounts of real or fake gold were ever transported to Kenya from Ghana,” the DCI noted.

“Further established is that scammers in countries believed to mine gold are conspiring with local and foreign accomplices stationed at Kenya's capital (Nairobi) to fleece clueless merchants, it being a strategic transit route for the precious metal from most African countries to UAE and other countries.”