Sh240m US fraud planned from Kenya
What you need to know:
- Shots were called from Kenya, with elaborate instructions and falsified documents, says report
- Scam initially involved only one Kenyan living in the United States
- Kenyans convicted in the case were not the authors of the scam, the court was told
A ring of fraudsters operating from Kenya are behind the attempted theft of millions of dollars from US government agencies for which three Kenyans were jailed in America.
An American judge found that they conspired to steal millions of dollars from US government agencies in five states.
They were helped by the three Kenyans living in America to execute the scheme which involved phony companies claiming compensation from the US government for fictitious services.
And on Thursday, a US judge sentenced two Kenyans to a total of nearly 10 years in prison for roles in the fraud.
US Judge John Copenhaver Jnr handed down a six-year term to Robert Otiso, 36, and a three-year, 10-month sentence to Paramena Shikanda, 35, for their roles in a scam that sought to dupe US officials in five states into paying Kenyan fraudsters a total of at least $3.3 million ( about Sh240 million)owed to legitimate businesses.
A third Kenyan, Collins Masese, 21, was sentenced to the nine months he has already spent in jail in connection with the scam. Masese also faces possible deportation to Kenya, as do the other Kenyans once they complete their sentences.
"Virtually all the shots were called from Kenya, with elaborate instructions and falsified documents to enable the conspiracy at every turn," the judge said, according to a report by the Associated Press.
An attorney for Shikanda tried at the sentencing hearing in the state of West Virginia to depict the previously convicted Kenyans as pawns in a scheme engineered from Kenya.
"All of these people, all of them, were merely servants of the puppet masters in Kenya who manipulated them from the safety of Kenya," said defence lawyer Gary Collias, the AP reported.
The scam initially involved only one Kenyan living in the United States: Angella Chegge-Kraszeski, 34, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy last year.
The Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette reported that she had travelled to Kenya in late 2008, where she was recruited by a man she knew as Jimmy Ojwang.
Using a photo taken while she was in Kenya, “Ojwang” provided Chegge-Kraszeski with a fake South African passport. Chegge-Kraszeski then incorporated three companies in the state of North Carolina with names nearly identical to those of businesses that did provide services to US state governments, the Charleston Gazette said.
With Otiso's help, she set up bank accounts for the fake corporations. The scammers then tried to trick officials in West Virginia, Massachusetts, Kansas, Florida and Ohio into routing payments into those accounts.
At Thursday's hearing, the Charleston Gazette reported, a US prosecuting attorney presented a copy of an e-mail from Chegge-Kraszeski's handler in Kenya with “WELL DONE GUYS” typed in the subject line. The message was sent after a payment for $919,916 was made into a fake account Chegge-Kraszeski and Otiso had established.
Chegge-Kraszeski said in court that the Kenyans convicted in the case were not the authors of the scam.
"There was no leader among us," she said, according to the West Virginia paper's account. "They [in Kenya] told us what to do."
Overall, more than three-quarters of a million dollars wound up in Kenya. Additional funds scammed in the case were frozen by suspicious US bank officials before the money could be sent to Kenya.
Shikanda told the judge on Thursday that his family in Kenya has been harassed by people believing, wrongly, that they're harbouring the loot, the AP reported. Masese's father, Thomas Masese, said after the sentencing that the same was true for their relatives in Kenya, the AP added.
"They don't have the money," the elder Masese, who lives in the state of Minnesota, told the AP. "These are poor kids."
Judge Copenhaver seemed to accept that the convicted Kenyans would be unable to repay money stolen in the case. But the judge added that the scam could not have succeeded without the participation of the Kenyans in the United States.
"You were an enabler, and an important one," Judge Copenhaver told Otiso, the AP reported.
Two other Kenyans—Michael Ochenge, 33, and Albert Gunga, 30, both living in the state of Minnesota—have pleaded guilty in the scam and are scheduled to be sentenced on August 26.
