The suspect who was arrested in Utawala, Nairobi, in connection to a fake gold syndicate that conned a Georgian national over USD 6 million was on Thursday, May 2 arraigned before Milimani Law Courts.

Frederick Thuranira M’mburi pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit a felony.

Consequently, the suspect was released on a bond of KSh3 million with a surety of one contact person, without the option of a cash bail.

The matter will be mentioned on May 9, 2024, for pre-trial.

Thuranira was arrested on Wednesday, May 1 night by the Operations Support Unit (OSU) detectives in his house in Githunguri area.

During the arrest, the detectives also confiscated about 23,600 notes (100 denominations) in fake US currency stuffed in two traveling bags and a steel box. Also seized were the fake gold nuggets in eight green canvas bags weighing approximately 10kg each.

The arrest follows a complaint by the Georgian national who was reportedly duped by the suspect and his accomplices in a 161,000kg gold deal.

“In 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,” the DCI says in a statement.

Preliminary investigations by OSU detectives have, however, revealed that the victim was duped in 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.

“Further established is that scammers in countries believed to mine gold are conspiring with local and foreign accomplices stationed at 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,” the DCI adds.