Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai has been asked to act on complaints that a criminal investigations officer is interfering with land fraud cases.
Mutyambai is in receipt of several written complaints against the senior officer attached to the Land Fraud Unit of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
In the letters stamped "received" and seen by the Star, the complainants accuse the detective of working in cahoots with land fraudsters.
Mombasa-based Sheik Zayed Children Welfare Centre, Manair Limited and city businessmen Francis Nyaga Njeru and Hasan Omar are among those who have complained to the police boss.
Sheik Zayed Children Welfare Centre complained to the DCI Land Fraud Unit after a company seized its Upper Hill land - LR No 209/11552 - in 2015.
It says investigations into the matter were completed but the investigating officers were transferred.
The centre accuses the senior officer of sitting on the file and trying to interfere with the findings of the investigations to “favour the fraudster.”
Centre director Hassan Khan told the IG, “My prayer is that you to look into the file in question yourself and see our complaint as registered land owners.”
Njeru similarly accuses the same officer of interfering with investigations into suspected land fraud cases number CR 121/455/2019 and CF/NO.2144 of 2019.
He claims the officer has on several occasions attempted to scuttle the case by refusing to arrest his land's fraud suspects.
According to Njeru, he bought the land, LR 20273, in 2005 and employed a caretaker who was later ejected from the property by people unknown to him.
Thereafter, a foreign company installed equipment on the land, prompting him to seek justice at the High Court through ELC Case No 766 of 2016.
He raised the matter with CID bosses, who summoned the officer and “he confessed that the land belonged to me. He was asked to conclude the matter promptly,” Njeru says in his complaint.
Manair, through director Kaushik Manek, says its parcel of land LR No 20274 I.R Number 63991 was occupied by an unauthorised company in 2018. The company claimed the ownership of the land and leased it to a construction firm.
Manair learnt from junior officers that its complaint was investigated and completed in September 2019 but the “information was being suppressed.”
“To date, no action has been taken to bring the perpetrators of this fraudulent act to book whilst the company continues to occupy our land guarded by Administration Police officers,” Manek states.
Omar lodged his complaint to the DCI two years ago about his land, LR 209/6/13, in Parklands.
He accuses the officer of conducting investigations in a manner that guaranteed him personal gain.
“My prayer to you, sir, is that you have an independent person look into the activities of this man, who may have taken an oath to protect rich land grabbers and deny rightful owners justice,” he said.
- mwaniki fm
