A man who allegedly impersonated ICT Cabinet Secretary (CS) Eliud Owalo has been charged with at a Makadara law court.
The suspect, Carols Dickens Otieno has been accused of fraudulently obtaining money from unsuspecting Kenyans while masquerading online as CS Owalo.
He is also facing charges for handling stolen property after police found him with a mobile phone that he could not account for.
According to the CS who reported the incident to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the 24-year-old suspect, a varsity student, was defrauding his victims by using his photos on his multiple social media accounts.
He lured his victims with the promise of plum jobs in the government on condition that they make payments first to secure slots.
The detectives traced him to his home in Tassia area, Embakasi, Nairobi county where they arrested him.
The suspect denied the charges before principal magistrate Hellen Okwani and was released on a Ksh100,000 bond with an alternative cash bail of the same amount.
Additionally, the suspect, through his lawyer sought orders to have the detectives return his car among other items they confiscated from him.
His case will be mentioned on Friday, February 17, while the hearing of the case will begin on August 21, 2023.
Similar incident
The latest comes barely a week after a 23-year-old man masquerading online as pastor Dorcas Rigathi - Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s wife was arrested for fraudulently obtaining money for unsuspecting members of the public.
Court documents show that the suspect was offering his victims non-existent education and business loans through M-Pesa.
He used to charge the applicants Ksh700 for registration fees and Ksh2500 for applications for the supposed loans he was offering.
The unsuspecting victims were promised loans ranging from Ksh10,000 to Ksh200,000 after paying the registration and application fees.
The suspect had opened 14 parody Facebook accounts using pastor Dorcas Rigathi's name. The accounts have huge following as the least has 7,000 followers and the highest has 27,000 followers.
Wafula was ultimately arrested at his hideout in Soy, Uasin Gishu county by detectives who tracked him using cyber forensic analysis of digital data.
Four mobile phones, three national identity cards of different persons and four sim cards were recovered when police arrested the suspect.
Wafula was jointly charged alongside his co-accused Jacklyne Tokesi, before Milimani Law Courts chief magistrate Lucas Onyina.
They were also charged with fraudulently using electronic data contrary to Section 38 (2) of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act, 2018.
They are accused of creating Facebook accounts between December 2022 and January 8, 2023, in relation to Mama Care Initiative Loan associated with the DP’s wife.
