Officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on Thursday, March 4, arrested Nairobi blogger Edgar Obare and a young woman over alleged fraud.
According to the detectives, the blogger allegedly uses blackmail in order to benefit financially from prominent personalities, by tainting their images online and demanding money not to post ‘scandalous’ information about them.
In their statement, the DCI claimed that Obare operates a syndicate of young women who stalk prominent personalities in political, business and religious circles for monetary exploitation.
"The ladies are coached by Obare, on how to ensnare the victims into their traps then extort unimaginable sums of money from them," read part of the statement from the DCI.
In a particular case, the blogger was accused of attempting to extort Ksh10 Million from Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua.
The DCI claims that a young woman, chosen for the task, had been coached on how to stalk the prominent governor.
"Obare had shared the governor’s number with her, and instructed her to tell him that she was pregnant with his child, and that she would tell the whole world about their little secret.
"When the governor did not respond, she was instructed to threaten that she would share photos that they had allegedly taken in compromising situations, but again the governor did not respond," the DCI stated.
Unbeknown to the woman, the blogger reportedly took to social media to post screenshots of the conversations between her and Mutua. He accused the governor of allegedly impregnating the said woman and failing to take responsibility.
This prompted the woman to file a report to the DCI offices in Nyali over the matter. The detectives soon established that she wasn't pregnant as she had claimed.
"She said that she has never met the governor, adding that she had only been recruited by Edgar, to extort money from the governor.
"She has since been arrested alongside her tutor Edgar Obare, and they will face publishing false information charges," the DCI stated.
