Kenya Revenue Authority has told the court that the reason the Directorate of Criminal Investigation is in the tax evasion cases involving businessman Humphrey Kariuki’s companies is to investigate the offence of money laundering.
This is after the the applicants, Africa Spirits Limited and Wow Beverages limited questioned why the DCI is in a KRA matter.
KRA lawyer told Justice Luka Kimaru that they had no experience or powers to investigate cases of money laundering hence turned to DCI for assistance and DPP for prosecution.
KRA is the complaint and during the investigations they realised that they needed an experienced agency to investigate and prosecute and the two agencies have materials to conduct investigations, which were beyond KRA’s capacity, KRA lawyer Ochieng added.
The agency further told the court that it is within powers of the DCI to file miscellaneous application before a magistrate’s court for preservation of exhibits (money in the banks accounts) since they have capacity to keep the exhibits secure, to avoid them being transferred outside jurisdiction of the court.
“Having passed threshold and territory of tax evasion is how we included into the matter, the DCI to preserve money and evidence for us,” added Ochieng.
DPP through senior assistant DPP Catherine Mwaniki told the court that African spirits have directors and shareholders who are interconnected and they are investigating serious offences.
Mwaniki questioned the conduct of Kiambu Magistrate court, setting aside its own orders claiming that it had no such powers.
She asked the court to vacate the said orders.
