An Indian based investor is counting losses of close to Kshs200 million after being involved in a fake gold business deal.
According to DCI, Malian Sanjay who is based in Mumbai, send millions of shillings to to a Guinea Bissau based fraudster identified as Cavalho Lopes who poses as a gold dealer so that he could sent him over 40 kgs of gold.
“The fraudster who styles himself as a gold dealer obtained $1,780,000 from one Malian Sanjay, based in Mumbai, India on the pretext that he would sell him 44.45 Kgs worth of gold,” DCI said in a statement.
The shipment was then send from Guinea Bissau through Kigali before being loaded on a plane to India via Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
Sanjay received a confirmation from Lopes that his shipment was headed for Nairobi.
Days later, he received a call from a man who claimed to be from Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) informing him that his luggage had been detained at JKIA.
“The caller identified as Hezbon Nyabola, informed him that his consignment, Airway Bill No706-27720626 had been detained at JKIA for non payment of customs duty,” the statement further read.
In order to save his gold and to facilitate its shipment, Sanjay send the ‘KRA official’ $26,700 without any suspicions.
He only realized that he had been scammed when his consignment failed to arrive in India on the time they had agreed.
At that instance he sought for assistance from DCI detectives.
“He became suspicious and sought the assistance of our detectives, who immediately moved in and recovered the consignment at JKIA,” DCI said.
“However upon inspection, what was supposed to be gold worth over Sh190 million was discovered to be river bed pebbles, neatly arranged in a box!” DCI added.
Hezbon Nyabola was arrested and will be arraigned in court for obtaining money in false pretense once investigations are concluded.
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