A Nairobi woman was on Tuesday, March 23, charged with defrauding a Dutch national of Ksh2.9 million over surrogacy services she had allegedly promised to offer.
The complainant, Dion William Van Aardt, told the court he met the suspect whom police identified as Winnie Warigia Maina, and who is the director of Family Fertility and Surrogacy Agency Limited, and had an agreement.
According to Dion, the suspect promised to help him get a child through surrogacy. William told the court that she signed a contract with the surrogate candidate as well as the agency, and paid a total of Ksh 2.9 million on the promise that he would be given a child.
“They showed me a contract between me and the surrogate and another with the agency,” said Dion before the court.
Dion told the court that he paid the money, and went ahead to deposit his semen at a city hospital, in readiness for the surrogacy process. After several tests, the semen was confirmed to be healthy.
When the first scan was done on the surrogate, Dion was reportedly informed by the complainant that the baby was a boy.
Dion told the court that he was excited by the news and went on to buy all the necessities to welcome a newborn into his life. He also told the court that he went to the extent of getting house help to help him take care of the baby.
He also told the court that after a second scan on the surrogate, he was informed that he was going to have a baby girl. Dion said that he was excited, and decided to name the unborn baby after his mother.
Dion told the court that he received a call days later from the complainant informing him that the surrogate and the baby had died.
He told the court that he asked to see the bodies of the two, but instead of being taken to the funeral home to see, the suspect asked for more money.
It was then that Dion suspected that something was a miss - and went on to make inquiries at the funeral home where the two bodies were allegedly being preserved. The funeral home denied they had received such bodies.
Dion reported the matter to the police leading to the arrest of the suspect.
Dion told the court that he lost a total of Ksh 2,920,045 between January 12, 2018, and February 2, 2019, when the incident happened.
