Frederick Thuranira M’mburi, a suspect involved in a fraudulent gold scheme worth approximately Sh809 million, was apprehended by detectives from the Operations Support Unit (OSU) on Wednesday night. The arrest took place at a residence located in the Githunguri area of Utawala, Nairobi.

According to the report by the DCI, a Georgian national lost over USD 6 million to fake gold racketeers who duped him into a 161,000kg gold deal.

During the raid by police, the suspect was found with 23,600 fake US currency notes and fake gold nuggets in eight green canvas bags.

Fake gold scam 

According to the police report of the multi-million fake gold scam, the merchant of Georgia reported to have traded tonnes of gold bars with a Ghanaian partner through a letter of administration before the High Court of Justice in Ghana, thereafter spending USD 6,090,500 on movement of the consignment from Ghana to Kenya, documentation and storage services.

However, preliminary investigations by OSU detectives reveal that the victim was duped from the word ‘Go’ by a well-organized ring of scammers whose names and machinations are not new to court records, and that no such amounts of real or fake gold were ever transported to Kenya from Ghana.

Detectives have further established is that scammers in countries believed to mine gold are conspiring with local and foreign accomplices stationed in Kenya’s capital (Nairobi) to fleece clueless merchants, it being a strategic transit route for the precious metal from most African countries to UAE and other countries.