Man arrested for masquerading as USAID manager

Detectives on Tuesday arrested a 29-year-old man suspected of committing cyber crime.

Paul Mwangi Njihia, a former computer technology student at a local university, is  alleged to have created an online profile purporting to be the general manager of USAIDKenya.

Detectives said that the suspect went ahead and started obtaining facilitation fees from members of the public.

Mwangi is said to have coned job seekers, giving them fake gate passes.

The victims are said to have sent a substantial amount of money as facilitation fees to a bank account linked to the suspect.

The suspect is in police custody and will be charged with obtaining money by pretences and impersonation.

Cases of impersonation have been on the rise.

In June, a man who claimed to be an officer at different police stations was 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 had been posing as an investigating officer in various police stations. Whenever a case was reported, he called the complainant to demand cash to speed up investigations.

One of his victims, Jessica 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.

In another case, two suspects were arrested in May for masquerading as genuine container sellers and defrauding an individual of Sh72,000 in Nairobi.