The Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) has filed an application seeking forfeiture of Sh109 million held in two bank accounts belonging to Kenyan college student Felesta Nyamathira Njoroge.
This is after investigations revealed that Nyamathira, a 21-year-old student at Nairobi Technical Institute, was involved in an elaborate international money-laundering scheme.
Nyamathira claimed she received the money as a gift from Belgian billionaire Marc de Mesel, whom she claimed to be her boyfriend.
“We have discovered that she is part of a syndicate involving complex money laundering schemes with individuals from various countries including Belgium from where she received the money on the pretext that it was a gift from her boyfriend,” ARA’s attorney Stephen Githinji says in court papers as quoted by The Standard.
“There are reasonable grounds and evidence demonstrating that the funds are direct and indirect benefits of proceeds of crime obtained from an international money laundering scheme and are liable for forfeiture to the government.”
A Co-operative Bank account registered in the name of Nyamathira holds Sh104 million while a Stanbic Bank account has Sh5 million.
Investigations by ARA detective Fredrick Musyoki revealed that the student opened the dollar account at Co-operative Bank on August 2nd, 2021, and four days later, the account was credited with $914,967 (Sh104,205,591) in four transactions.
“Our investigations established that she opened the accounts for the sole purpose of receiving the said funds which she declared the source to be from her boyfriend for her to invest in land projects and travelling,” Musyoki disclosed.
Musyoki says they contacted Nyamathira for interrogation about the source of the money but she fled to Tanzania on October 2nd, 2021. De Mesel, who was in the country at the time, also fled to Tanzania.
The investigator says the Belgian national transferred a total of Sh650 million to five separate persons between February 2020 and August 2021 without declaring the source of the cash.
High Court judge Esther Maina last November allowed ARA to freeze Nyamathira’s accounts for 90 days to pave way for investigations into a suspected money-laundering scheme.
Nyamathira – Easy come easy…
Nyamathira – Easy come easy go! The woman should have known that crimes of money laundering do not pay as her name has now been tarnished.
The whole group must all be stupid not to realized that the electronic money transfer systems keep every transaction properly documented.
I smell 2 Rats; 1. The…
I smell 2 Rats; 1. The Questionable source of the Money and 2. Purpose of the Money.
Naive European thinking…
Naive European thinking Africa is a dark continent. Joke is on u
Fake Willy pretends not to…
Fake Willy pretends not to remember the case of SABINA JOY governor who was never charged with stealing shs 900m from NYS.She had also conned GK/hungry billionaires of shs 10m being allowances for ghost trip abroad.The harlot bribed jambazi Uhuru and muuaji Raila with her NDURUME after leaving her new husband sleeping in the honey moon bed.Nyamathira patiana NDURUME.