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Police nab Nigerian over suspected fraud


A Nigerian national was on Wednesday arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) with authorities indicating he had tried to flee the country.

Endurance Obayan, 31, was nabbed on suspicion of allegedly attempting to defraud a nut processing company of Sh35.9 Million.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) explained that the suspect gained access to the Equatorial Nuts Processing Limited systems based in the city and sent a fake invoice to their client in Australia, demanding payment of Sh35.9 million.

“The email further instructed the client to channel the money to an account in China. This alarmed the client who immediately contacted Equatorial Nuts, in a bid to establish whether they had changed their bank details,” the statement read.

DCI said that the company’s security manager immediately alerted Cybercrime detectives, who were backed up by their Serious Crimes counterparts, and launched a manhunt for the suspect.

The suspect is said to have got wind of his pending arrest and immediately left his Ruaka apartment to JKIA where he was apprehended as he desperately attempted to board a Nigeria-bound flight.

The suspect was arraigned at the Milimani law courts on Thursday where he was charged with the offenses of Computer forgery contrary to section 25(1) of the computer misuse and cybercrimes act and attempted stealing contrary to section 268(1) as read with section 391 of the penal code.

In September, DCI alerted Kenyans on common scams that have been rampant across the country and have seen a majority of them lose their hard-earned property and money.

The investigative agency disclosed that a number of online scams have been reported to their end on the basis of threatening innocent Kenyans using the internet.

It warned against engaging in online transactions with companies, agencies, and/or individuals they have no credible information about, to avoid putting their hard-earned savings at risk.