Five tenants at the World Business Centre located in the Nairobi Business District were arraigned in court for on Tuesday, August 24 on fraud charges.
The five tenants, who appeared before Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi at the Milimani Law Court, allegedly conspired to defraud their landlord of rent for four years totaling to Ksh3.6 million.
According to the prosecution, the five purported to have paid rent on diverse dates and presented the receipts to the landlord.
However, the suspects who had leased shops at the premises presented the landlord with forged bank slips from a local commercial bank.
Investigating officers asked the landlord to present the forged bank slips for authentication at the bank.
"Investigations were conducted of the said offence and it was when the complainant was requested to avail all the purported forged bank slips for authentication," the police report read in part.
The bank confirmed that the slips were not genuine, explaining that the transaction reference number in the slips did not exist in the bank's records. In addition, the stamps on the allegedly forged slips did not match that of the bank.
Investigators also looked into the complainants account and established that none of the amounts presented as rent payments in the form of bank slips was reflected in his account.
The suspects were charged with six more counts of forgery in a separate account where they forged different bank slips between 2018 and 2019.
While mitigating for bail of his clients, the defense lawyer told the court that his clients were not the only ones involved in the fraud as 26 other tenants are also set to face similar charges.
He asked the court for leniency in granting the five cash bails. Andayi granted them bond of Ksh100,000.
