Two women were on Saturday, July 15, arrested in Kakamega County for impersonating law enforcement officers and extorting money from unsuspecting traders.
Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) officers pretending to be traders pounced on the middle-aged women after they attempted to fleece them.
EACC took action after complainants filed numerous reports claiming that the two were impounding unlicensed goods and demanding bribes in exchange.
The officers from EACC identified the suspects immediately accusing them of running a fraudulent private entity that purported to bring order to the town.
Victims claimed that the two women also posed as officials of the EACC, DCI, Police, and KRA and would confiscate goods from traders demanding bribes of up to Ksh50,000 to return them.
Preliminary investigations indicated that the least amount that the women demanded was Ksh20,000, failure to which they transferred the confiscated goods to an unknown storage.
Confirming the incident, EACC Head of Corporate Affairs and Communication Eric Ngumbi stated that the commission was pursuing other suspects in the scheme.
“It is sad and regrettable that many Kenyans have fallen prey to impersonators who have extorted huge amounts of money from them partly due to the readiness of the victims to bribe their way out of corruption allegations,” Ngumbi stated.
Ngumbi explained that EACC had created an elaborate plan to identify, investigate and arrest suspected fraudsters and impersonators across the country.
“Any person asking for a bribe in order to provide help by skewing investigations is not an EACC officer and should thus be reported for immediate arrest to be dealt with according to the law," Ngumbi noted.
He also confirmed that the two women will be arraigned in court on Monday, July 17, when they are required to take a plea in Kakamega Law Courts.
In the meantime, the two women were detained at Khayega Police Station as investigators sought to make a water-tight case against the impersonators.
