Man, woman posing as senior EACC directors arrested in Bungoma

A man and woman accused of conning public officials and members of the public while pretending to be senior Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) directors were arrested on Monday.

Sharon Nanjala Anyango and Tobias Singila Wekesa have been posing as top EACC officials who can terminate ongoing corruption cases in exchange for money, the anti-graft agency said.

Ms Anyango, 26, posed as a senior EACC director based in Nairobi while 23-year-old Mr Wekesa pretended to be the director in charge of EACC’s non-existent Kakamega office.

According to the state agency, the two were arrested in an NG-CDF office in Bungoma extorting money from a senior government official, promising to “sort out” a corruption case they claimed to be investigating.

“They demanded a bribe of Kes. 150,000 from the complainants, promising to drop the investigation and "forgive" them,” EACC CEO Abdi Mohamud said.

He added that the duo was held at the agency’s Western regional offices in Bungoma for interviews and statement recording.

In a similar incident last October, EACC arrested a man posing as the commission’s assistant director of intelligence operations.

Kennedy Ochieng Agutu was captured in Nairobi’s South C area. He had allegedly been extorting millions of shillings from unsuspecting victims, including senior state officials.

According to the graft watchdog, Mr Agutu would approach his victims pretending to be investigating corruption implicating them, then ask for huge ransom promising to “sort them out” by skewing investigations or waiving potential criminal charges.

Detectives said they found him with a fake EACC staff ID card and that of an entity called Kenya Network Against Corruption.

In 2024 alone, EACC said it recorded over 350 cases of fake detectives conning Kenyans while pretending to be the agency’s officers or other law enforcement agencies on official duty.

It said some imposters, especially in Kakamega, Bungoma and Busia counties, had even established fake EACC offices where they charged for services.