• Maina has been posing as an investigating officer in various police stations.
• Whenever a case is reported, he calls the complainant to demand cash to speed up investigations.
Image: CORAZON WAFULA
A man who claimed he was an officer at different police stations has been charged with impersonation and obtaining money by false pretences.
Stanley Maina, alias Francis Kang'ethe, was charged with five counts of obtaining money by false pretences.
Maina has been posing as an investigating officer in various police stations. Whenever a case is reported, he calls the complainant to demand cash to speed up investigations.
One of his victims, Jesca Indeche, reported a bank fraud case at Buruburu police station on January 17. On her way home, she received a call from a man who identified himself as Francis Kang'ethe, a police officer at Buruburu.
The man informed her that he had been assigned to investigate the case she had just reported at the station. The caller said that he needed facilitation of Sh3,000 to acquire a tracking machine. Indeche sent Sh1,000 and the number was switched off soon after.
She went back to Buruburu police station to inquire about her case but was informed that there is no officer called Francis Kang'ethe. Police officers do not ask for money to track down suspects, she was told.
In another incident, Maina allegedly obtained Sh8,000 from John Muchoge on September 4 last year pretending he was an officer at the Buruburu police station.
Maina allegedly called Muchoge after he reported that his wife and two children were missing. He asked for money to buy the tracking device.
The suspect was also charged with tricking a businessman into sending him Sh6,000 to a mobile phone number that was found in his possession.
He was accused of cheating Francis Ndugu on April 28 on Buruburu estate.
In the other counts, Maina was charged with obtaining Sh5,000 from Patrick Nyamu on March 5. Nyamu had reported that his wife and daughter were missing before Maina called him claiming he had been assigned to trace them.
Maina allegedly demanded cash for facilitation. But Nyamu discovered he was being conned after Maina claimed he had found them but did not want him to meet them. He demanded Sh3,000 ‘for his seniors’.
Maina denied all the charges before chief magistrate Heston Nyagah. He was freed on bails totalling Sh150,000.
He was charged at the same court with similar offences earlier this month after he was arrested at Shauri Moyo police station for conning members of the public.
Police said that Maina is also wanted in Kamukunji and Dandora police stations where seven and eight complaints respectively, have been lodged against him.
Nyagah ordered his detention at Buruburu police station as they await the arrest of accomplices.
(edited by o. owino)