Kenya’s Assets Recovery Agency targets the wealth of a Kenyan man Jeffrey Sila Ndungi jailed in the US for hacking and stealing Ksh434 million from the American government.
America’s taxman, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), proved beyond reasonable doubt that Ndungi was actively involved in the theft together with other family members.
The syndicate defrauded the state through a tax refund cheque with a probe showing that at least Ksh200 million was wired to his accounts.
A further Ksh180 million could not be traced.
In Kenya, ARA is eyeing Ksh20 million sitting in his bank account.
The agency says the money is a proceed of crime.
“Preliminary investigations established that the funds are proceeds of crime. The respondent (Ndungi) engaged in a complex money-laundering scheme whose intent was to conceal or disguise the nature, source, location, disposition or movement of the funds,” ARA states in court documents according to the Standard.
Before his conviction in the US, a federal court hearing the court was told that he tried to cash a cheque of a dead US national, Cynthia Short, worth Ksh4.8 million.
Short was one of the deceased pensioners who Ndungi and associates targeted.
He presented dully electronically filled cheques from Kenya to the US Department of Treasury.
The syndicate went beyond his family members, some of who are serving a prison sentence for the same.
But, there is a bigger membership in the syndicate.
This was revealed to the IRS agent after he asked for a discount.
“There are a lot of people involved with these cheques, if I tell them something happened, they can kill me,” Ndungi, who is serving a 10-year jail term, told the IRS agent.
“I gotta tell you this is not my area; I tell you there are a lot of other guys. I cannot talk on their behalf.”
Following his arrest, detectives probing the case found out that an account he used to siphon money was used 1,000 times.
