Detectives drawn from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on Wednesday arrested a suspect believed to be part of a syndicate scamming foreign nationals by selling them fake gold.
The arrest followed a complaint by a Georgian national who allegedly lost over Ksh800 million ($ 6 million) to fake gold scammers who tricked him into a 161,000kg gold deal.
According to a report by DCI officers, the suspect was arrested at his residence in the Utawala area of Githunguri, Nairobi County.
In the raid conducted by DCI's Operations Support Unit, the officers raided the suspect’s house on Wednesday night where about 23,600 notes (100 denominations) in fake US currency were recovered.
The fake denomination was found inside one of the rooms of the house stuffed inside two travelling bags and a steel box.
“Also seized were the fake gold nuggets in eight green canvas bags weighing approximately 10kg each,” detectives noted.
In the multi-million fake gold scam, the Georgia national reportedly traded tonnes of gold bars with a Ghanaian partner through a letter of administration before the High Court of Justice in Ghana.
The Georgian went ahead to spend the Ksh800 million ($6 million) for consignment which was to be moved from Ghana to Kenya for documentation and storage services.
“However, preliminary investigations by OSU detectives revealed that the victim was duped from the word 'Go' by a well-organized ring of scammers,” the DCI officers detailed.
According to DCI officers, there was no such amounts of real or fake gold transported to Kenya from Ghana as was expected by the foreigner.
The officers further established that scammers who claimed to mine gold were conspiring with local and foreign accomplices stationed in Nairobi to swindle clueless merchants.
“It is a strategic transit route for the precious metal from most African countries to UAE and other countries.”
