A man has been detained by Nairobi police on suspicion of being involved in the supply of 161,000 kg of counterfeit gold, which resulted in the theft of USD 6,090,500 (Ksh. 822.2 million) from a Georgian national.
Detectives from the Operations Support Unit apprehended Frederick Thuranira M'mburi at his Githunguri area residence in Utawala. He was found to possess approximately 80 kg of counterfeit gold nuggets and US currency.
"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."
Did you read this?
A man has been detained by Nairobi police on suspicion of being involved in the supply of 161,000 kg of counterfeit gold, which resulted in the theft of USD 6,090,500 (Ksh. 822.2 million) from a Georgian national.
Detectives from the Operations Support Unit apprehended Frederick Thuranira M'mburi at his Githunguri area residence in Utawala. He was found to possess approximately 80 kg of counterfeit gold nuggets and US currency.
"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.
Nevertheless, the detectives' subsequent investigation revealed that the Georgian had been duped from the start and that no shipment had ever been sent from Ghana to Kenya.
The DCI claims that a syndicate operates between gold-mining countries and Nairobi, which serves as a transit route to other countries, defrauding gullible investors.
"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."
