Gold bar that never was, and a bag full of dollars that grew wings

Necessity is the mother of invention, so goes the old saying. What the sages left out, however, was the fact that inventions come in many ways, some of them not legal.

The biting economic times have pushed tricksters to the wall, giving birth to the modern con artist who comes complete with the ability to deceive anyone. Anyone. Foolish or not. Greedy or not. Rich or not. Young or not. Anyone.

They take time to study an individual’s psyche and employ the confidence trick at the most opportune moment. Sometimes they ride on nothing but plain luck, but some of those who have fallen victim to Kenya’s army of tricksters say it was their plain stupidity — or lust for easy gains — that left them kicking themselves.

Some have chosen to be superstitious, blaming it on a curse or use of some evil power to lure them into the hands of a con artist.
Take Kennedy Otieno, for instance. The young, otherwise street-smart fellow was in his final year at the University of Nairobi in 2009 when he met a man dressed in old traditional Maasai regalia on the campus grounds.

The man’s akala sandals and small club he was carrying, combined with his accent, left no doubt in Otieno’s mind that he was a Maasai herdsman right from the village, probably lost in the intimidating sprawl of the city.

The stranger was holding a test tube in which was an object in silvery wrapping. On the side of the wrapping was conspicuously stamped: Gold for Export. Republic of South Africa. International Market Value: ZAR 120,000.

Otieno’s interest was instantly aroused. The “Maasai” man told him that, because he had never been to school, he did not understand what the stuff was, even though he had a feeling that it was something precious because he had picked it up after a tourist accidentally dropped it.

“The tourist turned back and asked me whether I had seen anything drop from his luggage,” the man explained to Otieno. “I told him no. He said he would give me Sh10,000 if I helped him find it.”

By dropping the Sh10,000 offer, the cunning man was setting a market price for his precious “gold”.

Otieno decided to be even more cunning. The old warrior did not know what he was carrying, after all. And it was worth about Sh1 million! So he told the man that the precious commodity he was carrying around in broad daylight was an illegal drug and that he risked being jailed should the police catch him with it.

The student had swallowed the hook, now all the man needed to do was reel in the fish, which he did by telling Otieno that, since he (Otieno) knew what the substance was, he probably knew how to dispose of it — but Sh1 million is a lot of money, even if it was illegal, so would Otieno give him something for his trouble?

After a lot of haggling during which the man complained about neglecting his herd of cattle to be on the university’s grounds and how long it would take him to get back home, Otieno agreed to help him dispose of the small consignment.

The man thanked him, but before he handed the package over, he told Otieno that, since the drugs were worth that much, and since Otieno was probably going to pawn them to someone else anyway, it was only right that he give him “something small”.

Otieno agreed, reached into his wallet and gave the man Sh2,000, then topped it up with his mobile phone. The man handed him the package and vamoosed.

ABSOLUTE GENIOUS

Otieno walked away, a new spring to his steps. He had just exchanged an ageing mobile phone and Sh2,000 for something worth Sh1 million. If that was not absolute genius, the meaning of the word must have changed.

The next day he surfed the internet in search of gold dealers and found one in downtown Nairobi. The Indian dealer, however, told him that they had to first confirm that it was pure gold, which would cost Otieno Sh500. Otieno was broke, having given the old Maasai all his pocket money, so he asked a friend to chip in.

On a cold Nairobi morning, Otieno went with his friend and his friend’s friend to the dealer’s small shop east of Moi Avenue. The dealer told them he would test the stuff by pouring acid on it. If that caused a reaction, there would be nothing golden about the loot.

He then took a piece of metal and broke the test tube, removed the silver covering, and poured the contents on a white paper.
Golden powder shone like a galaxy on the little piece of paper and alongside it a drab, rusty piece of metal lay in absolute dowdiness.

You could hear the collective thud of Otieno’s and his friends’ hearts as they sank to their knees. They had been conned.

When the dealer poured some acidic substance on the “gold dust”, it all went up in smoke, and with it the dream of a young university student to make his first million.

Otieno says the walk from the dealer’s shop to the main gate of the University of Nairobi was the longest he will probably ever take. He did not understand how he could have fallen victim to such an old trick.

How could he, a sharp brain that had made it to one of the region’s best universities, be conned by a “herdsman”? And how would he repay his friend’s Sh500?

Tough, enlightening questions for the young man, but not too hard to answer.

He, like thousands of other Kenyans, had fallen prey to the tricks of the nation’s breed of new con artists who, like life itself, are ever-evolving.

Another unlikely victim, whom we shall only call Kemboi because he asked us not reveal his identity, was whiling the time away at an army barracks in the city when a colleague’s mobile phone started ringing.

Because the colleague was not in the room, he picked it up to tell the caller to dial a few minutes later, but a woman on the other end told him not to hang up.

HOUSEHELP

Sounding rather naive, she told the man that she was a househelp at a foreigner’s home and that she was calling the owner of the phone to inform him that she would deliver “some green currency notes” in exchange for Kenya shillings.

Kemboi told the woman that he would also be interested in the deal, so could they meet? She agreed and a few days later, the woman gave Kemboi four $10 notes to confirm whether they were genuine.

Kemboi called a few hours later with the good news that the notes were indeed real. The woman, however, told him to keep the money because there was more in the foreigner’s house.

That was the bait and Kemboi, like Otieno and the story of the Maasai herdsman, swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The woman told him that she had gathered a full polythene bag of such notes, that her boss was away for one week, and that the soldier only needed to give her Sh100,000 in exchange for the loot.

Kemboi told the woman he did not have that kind of money, but that he would apply for a loan, then call her as soon as he got the money.

A few days later, he called the woman, who agreed to seal the deal at a location in Nairobi’s South B neighbourhood. The soldier carried his bundle of cash and headed for the rendezvous, a residence surrounded by a high wall and accessed only through a big black gate.

“The woman, however, told me at the gate that a relative of her boss’s had just come visiting, so it was a difficult for her to get the dollars out,” recalls Kemboi.

“She, however, seemed to be impatient to get the bundle I had come with and so, knowing she was a mere househelp whom I knew I could trace here if she was lying to me, I gave her the cash. She went back inside the house and told me she would give me the dollars in a few minutes once the opportunity to sneak them out presented itself.”

When the woman took an unusually long time to come back, Kemboi called her and she told him to be patient and that all was well.
Three hours later, and despite numerous assurances that he would have his dollars soon, Kemboi lost his cool and banged on the gate.

To his surprise, it swung open! All this time it had not been locked... because there was nothing it was protecting.

Kemboi walked in, surveyed the area, and sunk to his knees. Where he had expected to find a huge mansion, he found an expanse of nothingness, an empty compound with a small exit at the far end.

He had been hit, and three hours was long enough for the woman to have gone to Nakuru. Or Mtito Andei. Or Nyeri. Or Kitui. The possibilities were endless.

And now his head was spinning. He took out his phone one last time to call the woman. Her phone was switched off and it has never rang again.

Two men, two con artists, and lessons that are too hard to swallow. More depressing stories will never be told.