An advocate of the High Court, Stephen Juma Ndeda has been arraigned before the Chiefs Magistrates’ Court at Kahawa to face charges of forgery, uttering forged documents, and money laundering.
This comes after thorough investigations were conducted by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, which received an intelligence report on June 26th, 2023, linking the advocate to have committed the mentioned offences on diverse dates in June 2020.
The investigations conducted by Detectives from the Financial Investigations Unit domiciled at the DCI Headquarters revealed that the advocate’s law firm Ndeda & Company received a total of USD 52, 490,000 through wired transfers in the name of payment for the purchase of land.
“This transaction was supported by a sale agreement between Andrew Simiyu (Vendor) and Alguns Limited (Purchaser) relating to a 50-acre parcel of land in Kajiado County. As per the agreement, Ndeda & Company was stated to be acting on behalf of both the Vendor and the purchaser where the vendor had agreed to sell the property for a price of Sh60,000,000 with Sh5,000,000 being the initial deposit to be paid within 90 days” the DCI explained.
It was also established that, according to the agreement, the purchaser was Alguns Limited. However, the funds were sent by a different entity in the name of Algans Eood, whose address is in Sofia Bulgaria.
It was further established that Algun Limited is a company whose main business is arms trading a fact which led to suspicion of an international syndicate of money laundering and possible arms smuggling.
Funds were wired to the advocate’s Nairobi bank account, which was immediately reversed to the sender on account of non-compliance with the bank’s internal policies and regulatory guidelines on money laundering and reporting of suspicious transactions.
It was further established that the advocate with intent to defraud forged the land sale agreement purporting it to have been signed by Andrew Simiyu (owner of the land) which he uttered in the bank as supporting documents to facilitate the illicit transfer of funds from foreign jurisdiction to Kenya. Andrew Simiyu disputed signing nor knowledge of the sale agreement in question involving the intended sale of his parcel of land.
Upon independent review of the case by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions he was in concurrence with the investigator’s findings and recommendations and therefore directed Stephen Juma Ndeda to be charged in court for Forgery, Uttering False Documents and Money Laundering.
The advocate was arraigned Friday and pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on bail terms of Sh1 million bond or cash bail of Sh200,000.
