BY NT CORRESPONDENT.
Three people among them a tea girl, a gardener and caretaker of company known as Afrosolutions have been charged with obtaining Sh 100,000,000 in gold scam.
Consolata Achieng Kwendete, Washington Libese and Enock Mungwana Okonda are accused of obtaining the money from Ukranian businessman Kavalenko Henneddii, by falsely pretending that they were in a position to sell him gold.
The three are alleged to have committed the offence between January and October 2018 at Afrosolutions company offices along Kaputei Road in Kileleshwa, Nairobi jointly with others not before court.
They denied the charges before Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi and were granted a bond of Sh 2 million or alternative cash bail of Sh 1 million.
The 47 year old businessman fell victim of the ‘now trending’ gold scam after he was introduced to the business by Anton Chsherbakov an acquittance in Ukraine back in 2016.
It is alleged that the same year, Henneddii travelled to Kampala in Uganda with his colleagues where he met one Jeanot Bokwote, a Congolese National.
Jeanot claimed to own a company in Kampala by the name Dam Gemstones Expert Limited.
It is further alleged that Jeanot informed the complainant that he had 350kgs of gold and agreed to sell to them at USD 30,000 per kilo.
The complainant was allegedly asked to pay USD 300,000 (Sh 30,000,000) being money for export licence, government flight taxes, among other taxea. The money was allegedly paid in cash to Jeanot.
He also met one John Getete who was a director at Dam Gemstones which was to facilitate the export of the consignment.
Henneddii allegedly flew to Dubai later to sell the gold but on arrival, he never found the said gold which was supposed to have been shipped.
He alleges that he was informed that the gold had not been flown to Dubai since a problem arose in Kampala and he was required to go back and solve the matter.
On arrival to Kampala, it is alleged that the complainant was asked to pay another USD 650,000.
It is claimed that he flee back to Ukraine to look for the money and went back to Kampala in February 2017 where he paid the money to Gatete.
Part of this money was allegedly for the his non criminal certificate which was given to him by the said Gatete upon payment.
He allegedly flew to Dubai later with Jeanot, Anton and Gatete to sell the gold. Henneddii claims he was the one who paid for the four air tickets at USD 3,000.
Surprisingly, on arrival to Dubai, there was no gold again. This time the excuse was ‘United Nations Inspector’ who apparently wanted to see him.
The said Inspector by the name Francois Emile allegedly informed him that he needed to travel to Brussels, Belgium for authorization for transportation of gold.
He alleges that he again paid USD 130,000 for authorization in Belgium.
He was again told the shipment could not be done since there was a problem with his name. He alleged he was asked to change his passport name from Genaddii to Henaddii since the authorization had been issued under the new name.
He allegedly paid another USD 210,000 to Gatete for change of the documents.
Later he was allegedly asked to pay USD 382,000 for the ministry of finance in DRC. Gatete allegedly told him that Jeanot had been arrested as some people had complained against him having sold some gold and he sent him the OB number.
He was apparently informed to pay USD 110,000 to secure his release and another USD 30,000 for new documents.
That was around October 2017.
Around early January 2018, Jeanot allegedly told him that it become difficult to ferry the consignment from Uganda to outside and said they should take it to Kenya where he had a friend for the job but the complainant declined.
On 17 January, the said Jeanot called and informed him that he was travelling to Nairobi and if he (complainant) was still interested in the shipment, she should fly to Nairobi.
