A Nairobi tycoon is in into trouble with the anti-money laundering agency for suspected links with a network of US, Nigeria and South Africa-based individuals believed to have been helping him move large sums of money around the world as part of a laundering scheme.
Mr Kinyanjui says that all banks he approached have turned him away on grounds that he has been listed as a person of conflict under the proceeds of crime and anti-money laundering law.
“I have been to several banks and have been informed that the first respondent has circulated my name under the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act and listed me under the anti-money laundering records,” he says in court documents.
Samuel James Kinyanjui has been transmitting large sums of money to Standard Charted Bank accounts in New York, Lagos and South Africa, which investigators believe are proceeds of crime.
The Banking Fraud Investigation Department (BFID) says in court filings that Mr Kinyanjui has mostly been sending large sums of money to an individual identified as Nathan Yobana — a West African whose nationality is not known.
The businessman has a significant interest in Kenya’s booming real estate sector that is part of the massive business empire he has built over a 50-year period. The Sh2 billion Edenville Estate in Kiambu and flower firm Torito Roses are some of his best-known investments.
Phase One of Edenville Estate consists of 345 housing units, most of them villas priced at between Sh14.5 million and Sh18.5 million each.
The businessman claims that he entered the business scene with a multi-billion shilling deal that saw him supply oil mining equipment to the Nigerian government.
Mr Kinyanjui bagged the deal with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation in 1991, according to documents attached in the case file, but received payment in instalments over several years.
While he does not verify the total value of the deal, Mr Kinyanjui says he received $20 million (Sh2 billion) from the Nigerian government in 1999 as the final payment.
BFID detectives, however, reckon that an analysis of information collected so far does not show any legitimate business transactions between Mr Kinyanjui and Mr Yobana to validate the large sums of money sent to the West African national.
Mr Kinyanjui transferred over Sh150 million to Mr Yobana between April and September 2015, but sent the funds in small instalments, which the investigators believe was meant to avoid raising suspicion.
“Nothing suggests any lawful business transaction between Mr Kinyanjui and the said remittance destinations warranting such colossal transmission in frequent intervals with a majority of them structured below legal threshold ostensibly to defeat easy detection and statutory mandatory reporting to both the Central Bank of Kenya and the Financial Reporting Centre,” the BFID adds.