Nashon Otieno Angudha, a key suspect in a series of fraud cases affecting local and foreign gold merchants has been arraigned at Milimani Law Courts.
According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the suspect was arrested Tuesday evening for obtaining Ksh 35 million from a businessman in a fake gold scam.
In the fraudulent scheme orchestrated on diverse dates between July 13 and October 18, 2023, the 28-year-old is accused of swindling the victim out of the millions by luring him to a purchase and export deal of 100kg of gold to Dubai, the amount being fees for transportation and insurance.
After parting with the money which was paid in US dollars ($250,000), nine gold bars given to the victim as collateral were subjected to a test at the Ministry of Mining, but none of them exhibited even a trace of gold element.
Nashon then holed up leaving the businessman devastated and poorer, thereby seeking the intervention of law enforcers.
Acting on intelligence, the Operation Support Unit (OSU) detectives conducted a stealth operation at Crystal Spring Apartments in Lavington, Nairobi, managing to net the suspect while in his KDM 523Q Toyota Prado. Crucial exhibits including radio sets and chequebooks were seized from the vehicle.
Nashon was Thursday arraigned at court no. 5 charged with conspiracy to commit a felony and obtaining money by pretenses. He pleaded not guilty to both charges and has been remanded until Friday, 4th April 2024 when a bond determination will be made.
The objection to release him on bond by the prosecution followed Nashon’s criminal record, noting that he is implicated in a robbery with violence case at the Kibera court no. 5, for jointly with his two accomplices robbing a foreign couple over USD90,000 when they jetted the country for a gold business.
In the October 28, 2023 case, Nashon Otieno, Jack Ouma Okwiri and Felix Ochieng’ Nyongesa lured an Australian man and his Ugandan wife to an office setup in the Runda suburbs, before turning against the couple.
The man was beaten up and the wife sexually assaulted, before the gang robbed and dumped them at Rehema House in Nairobi CBD.
The three were later arrested at the Social House Nairobi Hotel in the Lavington area and arraigned at Kibera Law Courts on November 9, 2023, charged with robbery with violence.
They were released on a Ksh 1M bond with an alternative of Ksh 300,000 cash bail.
