On January 5, 1997, a man strolled into the offices of high-security Kenya Airfreight Handling Limited at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) and duped guards on duty Sh54 Million.
The story is told of one Charles Omondi Odhiambo who walked into the Airfreight handling limited and picked up the Sh54 Million which was in crisp dollars.
This remains one of the most perplexing robbery stories the country ever witnessed since the suspect, Mr Omondi, disappeared into thin air after he took the money.
He exited the state and left baffled investigators as police and the Central Bank of Kenya scrambled to investigate offering a reward of Sh250,000 which was later increased to Sh1 Million.
[caption caption="The Daily Nation headline after the heist story leaked to the press"]
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The money, which is an equivalent of Sh85 Million today, was ferried in an 11-kilogram bag and led investigators to question why the bank did not use modern methods of transferring huge sums of money.
The money was normally collected from the airport, where it was stored in a strong room, on Mondays and a city security firm was in charge of this task.
However, that was not the norm when the city security firm’s personnel went to collect the money only to find it missing.
On January 10, the plot thickened when police confirmed to local dailies that indeed the money had been stolen and the suspect had fled the country.
A year later, police responded to a domestic violence call only to find that the man in question was the suspect, who had a disagreement with his wife after she moved from Umoja estate to BuruBuru.
[caption caption="Mr Omondi being escorted by a police officer"]
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After a lengthy trial, he was jailed for three years and later released from jail following a presidential pardon in 2002.
To many in his Ugunja area, “Chacho”, as he is popularly known, is a respected businessman and philanthropist.
