Flying squad officers on operation have busted a fake gold syndicate, seizing over 50kg of “gold nuggets” that criminals use to defraud foreigners and locals of hundreds of millions of shillings. Six people have been arrested in connection to running the syndicate at Yaya Centre in Kilimani.
There have been reports of many foreigner being swindled hundreds of millions of shillings by a well-functioning cabal in the city but the police have not been able to expose the scam fully that has operated for many years.
This is a major success in the seizure of fake gold nuggets in a single raid, which criminal syndicates have for years used to defraud unsuspecting buyers, mostly foreigners, of huge sums of money, severely tarnished the country’s image.
The arrest comes days after $20 million (Sh2 billion) was recovered in a safe deposit box in what police said was fake currency at the Barclays Kenya Queensway Branch in Nairobi.
The seizure exposed the weak underbelly of customer surveillance systems in the banking sector a day after CBK gave a tough directive to banks on handling of illicit cash.
Barclays said that one of its customers at the branch had kept the fake currency in a safe deposit box.