Starehe politician Steve Mbogo appeared in court yesterday over a gold scam in which a Dubai-based businessman was conned out of about Sh102 million.
Mbogo and two other suspects are accused of fraudulently obtaining $1 million from Sayeed Altaf — a United Arab Emirates citizen.
The former MP candidate, Rashid Patel
and James Kinyanjui
appeared before Milimani senior principal magistrate Peter Ooko, but were not charged.
The prosecution wanted the three remanded for four days at the Kileleshwa police station to allow it to conclude investigations, but the magistrate rejected the request.
Instead, Ooko directed the prosecution to charge the three immediately or release them if it did not have enough particulars to sustain a charge.
“Why do you want to remand them if you have all the information? Charge them if you have all the particulars. If you don’t, let them go,” he said.
Mbogo’s lawyer Edwin Sifuna requested that his client be given anticipatory bail to prevent further arrests. He accused the prosecution of being “mischievous”.
Altaf had told police that he was duped by the suspects into parting with his cash, after he was introduced by Ishmael to a business deal involving sale of gold. According to a court application, the businessman filed a complaint on January 17.
Stephen Wachira, a police officer stationed at the Nairobi county office, said investigations led to the arrest of the three on Monday at a house in Parklands, Nairobi.
Police recovered more than 100 cubes resembling gold, which will be forwarded to the Mines and Geology department for analysis.
The officer said they also confiscated the suspects’ mobile phones.
“We require time to forward their mobile phones to cybercrime experts for retrieval of some messages, which will assist us complete our investigations,” he said, adding they want to ascertain if Mbogo and his associates are part of a gold scam ring.