Two former police officers have been arraigned for impersonating Kisii Governor James Ongwae by calling Administration Police Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) requesting him to reinstate them in the service.
Kennedy Ooga Onsongo and Declarn Odongo Oyugi were arraigned before Nairobi Senior Principal Magistrate Jane Kamau on April 8, 2021, where investigators requested the court to detain them for 10 days pending completion of their investigations.
The court was told that on March 16, 2021, Onsongo called the personal assistant to DIG, Ndirangu S.S.P, purporting to be Governor Ongwae, and requested to have 'Onsongo' reinstated to the service.
Also Read:
Three weeks later, on April 6, the two former police officers presented themselves to the Human Resource office at the Administration Police headquarters for their 'appointment.'
While there, it was discovered that the phone number they had used to call the DIG pretending to be Governor Ongwae was registered to Onsongo.
The incident was reported to the police station at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre and the case taken over by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) office based at Parliament.
With the assistance of AP officers, the two were arrested and placed in custody.
The phone that Onsongo used to call the personal assistant to the DIG was also confiscated for cybersecurity experts to extract and analyse data.
The investigating officer, Sergeant Daniel Koipiri told the court he needs at least 10 days since some of the evidence he plans to unearth requires booking appointments with senior members of the National Police Service.
"The investigations are ongoing and we have reasonable leads that the suspects may have been involved with others who are at large," said State prosecutor Fredrick Kimanthi.
Kimanthi, in opposing the suspects' application to be released on bail, said investigations also require the physical presence of the suspects.
But the magistrate released the suspects on bail and ordered them to deposit their police service identification cards in court and report to the KICC police station to help with the investigation.
