Court freezes another Ksh.115M wired from Mauritius to Kenyan woman

The High Court has frozen some Ksh.115 million wired to another Kenyan woman identified as Isabel Nyaguthii Wanjohi by a company registered in Mauritius.

The money is believed to be proceeds of crime and was found in a Standard Chartered Bank account belonging to Ms. Wanjohi, who is an employee of Platinum Credit Limited.

Lady Justice Esther Maina of the ​ Anti-corruption court on Tuesday directed Standard Chartered to transfer the money to Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) for preservation, pending determination of the case.

According to ARA, Ms. Wanjohi received $1million on April 13 from Platcorp Holding Limited purported to be an unsecured loan whose purpose wasn’t disclosed.

The agency later intercepted it as she was about to wire it to South Africa through swift transfer, also without an explanation.

ARA raised an alarm that the transactions indicated money laundering activities and asked Ms. Wanjohi to explain, following which she allegedly produced an agreement with Platcorp Holdings Ltd purporting it was an unsecured loan.

She also produced a second agreement dated April 7, 2022, between her and Premier Credit, where she was to loan the company a similar amount.

The purpose of the loan agreement was not disclosed and no one signed as a witness.

“The investigations established that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the funds in issue are proceeds of crime obtained from illegitimate sources by the respondent which require to be preserved pending filing and hearing of an intended forfeiture application,” Gitiri Jennifer, a principal state counsel at the agency, said.

In December, ARA froze Ksh.102 million wired to the account of Nairobi Technical Institute student Felista Nyamathira Njoroge.

The agency applied to have Felista’s account frozen after suspecting that the millions were proceeds of money laundering sent to her account by Belgian businessman Marc De Mesel, who has been said to be her boyfriend.