Police on Sunday impounded an estimated Sh50 million in fake dollars and arrested three suspects in Nairobi’s Kilimani estate.
The three suspects — two Ugandan men and a Dutch woman — were arrested moments before they ripped of two Sudanese nationals Sh40 million in a dubious business transaction.
The two Ugandan nationals were said to be working with the Dutch woman to extort money from businessmen by offering the fake currency.
But the woman claimed she was a freelance journalist who was trying to break a story of a syndicate that deals in drugs and fake money.
She could, however, not produce her identification documents or demonstrate some of her work in a career she said spanned 25 years.
This incidence occurred barely a day after police recovered another Sh140 million in fake currency in Ngong’ town where two Congolese men and a Kenyan lady were arrested.
“What is now emerging is that trade in fake currency is a very big syndicate in Kenya,” said Kilimani police boss Bernard Muli.
The two businessmen, who could barely speak English, said they had been contacted by the Ugandans through the Internet and a proposal for making big money floated.
They were then booked in hotels in Kenya where they would be furnished with finer details of the deal.
But the duo told police they were taken aback when they were asked for the Sh40 million to introduce them to a deal of producing and dealing in American currency.
They then approached the police who busted the trio in their apartment in Kilimani.
“I ask all Kenyans to take caution when they are approached by people purpoting to offer a big business deal,” Mr Muli said.
Last year police found fake Sh144 million notes marked with a USAid stamp in a printing press in a house at Greenfields estate in Eastlands.
All the fake notes had the same serial numbers. A printing machine attached to old computer parts, two steel safes, and rolls of bhang were seized.
Assorted chemicals, fake UN and US Treasury department documents were also impounded.
According to the Central Bank of Kenya: “Counterfeits are a threat to the circulation of genuine Kenyan currency. Security features in currency notes act as a deterrent and safeguard to minimise the risk of counterfeiting.”
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