On April 10, 2010, an old, blind and half paralysed man who goes by the name Mr Patrick Njuguna together with his sons Mr Edward Njuguna and Mr George Kireru, trading as ‘Patrick Kang’ethe and Sons’ went to Co-operative Bank and borrowed Sh166 million.
They also gave out security for a half-acre parcel of land in Dagoretti, whose title was Dagoretti/Riruta/2289. That title was in the name of Mr Njuguna — who is a father to both Edward and George.
Four years later, Njuguna and his accomplices would present two other ‘original’ titles for the same piece of land and secure Sh100 million and Sh200 million from Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) and Equity Bank respectively. Both CBA and Equity Bank, which still retain the titles used as security, say appropriate searches did not reveal any previous charge on the titles.
It is a case termed as “perplexing” and as a “measure of how high the country has soared in the corruption index” and is just a tip of the iceberg, but welcome to the world of the Kangethe family.
With just one land title deed, and working with cahoots and close relatives backed by crooked operatives at the Lands Registry, the Kangethe’s ‘raided’ three banks and wheeled off Sh466 million — without firing a single gunshot.
Caught in the web are lawyers, top banks and leading real estate agents and valuers.
When the original title was given to Co-operative Bank after the Kang’ethe family signed two charge agreements dated in 2010 they walked away with the money and never repaid it. Instead, they started what the Appeal Court terms as a “syndicate” that has left three banks on the verge of losing hundreds of millions of customers’ money.
How this new title for a property that had been charged to Co-op Bank was made and introduced into the Land Registry is at the heart of this complex web. But what we know so far is that when Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) decided to carry out a search to verify whether the title was genuine, they found no evidence that it had been charged and, on the face of it, it looked perfectly clean, mainly because the people who introduced the title and deed maps were members of the syndicate. They were also, possibly, employees of Swazuri’s Land registry