Among the items confiscated in the Ngara office were four mobile phones, two typewriters, four printers, scanners, an incomplete certificate of title, and fifteen deed plans. Also seized during the operation were two survey plans, a CPU, about 1000 unprinted title deed papers, seventeen (17) letters of allotment, assorted computation files, one logbook, one smart driving license, and about 100 different date codes
By Collins Wanzallah
Police officers drawn from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), led by the officer commanding land fraud investigations unit Wilheim Kimutai, held an operation in Ngara, Nairobi, on Friday, where they arrested six individuals suspected of being involved in altering land documents.
The officers, who included his deputy Omondi Ogolla and an officer named Nicholaus Osuri, arrested the six, whom police believe are members of a serious land cartel involved in defrauding Kenyans of their genuine parcels through changing ownership in both the physical files and the digital platform using fake documents.
Those who were arrested during the operation were Benedict Mwangangi Ngala, Joel Kakuli Mwangangi, Sylvester Mwanzia Mwanthi, Erick Omondi Ojwang, Titus Wambua Kithuku, and Vincent Boaz Owang. According to Kimutai, the six were found printing fake land documents in their office at Anpemu House within the Ngara area. “Ngala receives instructions from different clients, among them rogue brokers and rogue ministry of land officials, who directed him to print fake documents and append the signatures and stamps of ministry officials without their knowledge, indicated Kimutai.
Among the items confiscated in the Ngara office were four mobile phones, two typewriters, four printers, scanners, an incomplete certificate of title, and fifteen deed plans. Also seized during the operation were two survey plans, a CPU, about 1000 unprinted title deed papers, seventeen (17) letters of allotment, assorted computation files, one logbook, one smart driving license, and about 100 different date codes.
According to Kimutai, a search was also conducted at the Ngala residence and several items were confiscated from the residence, which included four stamps belonging to the Ministry of Lands officials, registry index maps for Nairobi block 118 land, eleven allotment letters, several land administration leases, and nine deed plans.
Their modus operandi, according to Kimutai, is that the brokers are the first source for fraudulent jobs from different clients for ingestion into the manual and digital registries at the Ministry of Lands. The most targeted parcels include prime undeveloped parcels, those owned by foreigners, the elderly, and the deceased.
Once the brokers have the targeted parcels at hand, they then engage Benedict to prepare and print fake land documents. Thereafter, the brokers engage some rogue ministry staff to insert the counterfeit documents into the physical files, and once that is done, they upload the fake documents into the Ardhi Sasa platform.
While this process is ongoing, the brokers have already identified a buyer, and once the fake documents are uploaded to the Ardhi Sasa platform, the buyer can conduct a search, and by then ownership will have changed. In cases where the parcel is not for immediate sale, the brokers transfer the parcels to themselves using proxy individuals or proxy companies.
These brokers are well known within the Ministry of Lands, with one of them fond of name-dropping as a way of commanding respect within the ministry. During the arrest, one of the suspects swallowed his memory card to conceal evidence. Another suspect ran away from the scene while delivering the title for printing while leaving his documents and phone at the scene. Officers from the Scene of Crime Unit processed all the scenes, and the suspects were later processed at the DCI headquarters.
The six suspects are being held in three different stations, namely Gigiri, Parklands, and Muthaiga police stations, awaiting presentation in court on Monday.
