Details have emerged about a Jua Kali trader who successfully defrauded the Central Bank of Kenya and walked away with a sum of Ksh205 million.
According to a report by The Standard, the man walked into a bank in Westlands with Ksh5,000 seeking to open a business account bearing the name 'Mpesha Enterprises'.
The enterprise reportedly dealt with horticultural products and he was facilitated through the process by the bank's region manager at the time, Jignesh Desai.
The man, who was later identified as Alex Ribero Ngugi, did not raise much eyebrows because he had been referred to the manager by another trusted client of the bank.
After setting up the account, Mpesha, a briefcase company, embarked on an elaborate plan of siphoning millions from Central Bank under the guise of selling Treasury bonds.
The company lacked a physical address and the account was registered under John Mbuu who was later unmasked as Ngugi.
When he set up the account, it stayed dormant for more than six months until January 2003 when a deposit of Ksh50,000 was made into the account.
From then on, the account continued receiving large sums of money including Ksh95 million that was credited into the account in February the same year. An explanation that accompanied the deposit stated that it was from the sale of bonds. Huge withdrawals were made including Ksh16 million in cash
Later that month, another Ksh90 million got deposited into the account from Dyer and Blair and as usual, huge withdrawals were made (Ksh6.5 million in cash). Ksh50 million was transferred through banker's cheque.
In court documents, it was also noted that Ksh15 million got deposited into the account. The prosecutor of the case argued that the bank could have raised an alarm over the huge withdrawals but it did not.
The con game got laid bare after it was revealed that T-Bonds for CBA Capital were transferred into the controversial account. The bonds were valued at Ksh175 million.
Two months later, other T-bonds valued at Ksh30 million belonging to Mumbu Holdings also got transferred into the business account fraudulently.
When Mumbu offered to sell their bonds is when they discovered that their stock had been transferred. Investigative police later printed an advert looking for the proprietors of Mpesha Enterprises only for Ngugi to present himself.
On December 18, 2019, Justice George Odunga ordered Desai and Ngugi to pay back the Ksh205 million plus interest until the debt was fully settled.
Ngugi had worked at Barclays as a banker from November 1987 as a cashier and lost his job in 1997 before proceeding to the Jua Kali sector.
