A university student to lose Sh109 million after a State agency filed a formal application to have the money forfeited as the proceeds of crime.
The Asset Recovery Agency said in its appeal to the High Court in Nairobi that it had concluded investigations into Felesta Nyamathira Njoroge’s financial accounts. According to the CIA, she is a member of an international network of money launderers.
“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,” said ARA through lawyer Stephen Githinji.
The agency wants Njoroge’s USD914,967 (Sh104,205,591) in Co-operative Bank and Sh5 million in Stanbic Bank forfeited to the state due to claims that she was used as a conduit for illicit monies by her overseas associates.
In November of last year, ARA got a court order blocking Njoroge’s accounts for 90 days in order to conclude investigations into suspicions of money laundering.
Githinji informed the court that after conducting investigations, they discovered that the 21-year-old Nairobi Technical Training Institute student engaged in a complex money laundering plan aimed to conceal and obscure the origin and sources of her funds.
“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,” said Githinji.
According to the agency’s investigator, Fredrick Musyoki, Njoroge opened a dollar account at Co-operative Bank on August 2, 2021 with no balance, but within four days, the account was credited with USD914,967 (Sh104,205,591) in four transactions.
Njoroge told the investigator that the money was a present from her Belgian boyfriend Marc De Mesel.
“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 traveling,” said Musyoki.
The investigator added that when they called Njoroge for interrogation about her source of cash, she fled to Tanzania as a pedestrian on October 2, 2021.
Musyoki went on to say that De Mesel, who was in the nation at the time, also fled to Tanzania along the same path. De Mesel, according to the investigator, transmitted a total of Sh650 million to five separate recipients.
