The Director of a company based in Ireland has told court how he was swindled millions of shillings in Nairobi while trying to buy gold.
Satbinder Singh, the director of Asianic Limited, testified before Principal Magistrate Paul Mutai in a case where three men are charged with the fraud.
Singh told the court that he travelled to Kenya in 2024, in the company of his business colleague, Marco Colombo Conti in search of a gold investment opportunity.
While in Kenya, they allegedly met several individuals among them Alain Mwadia Nvita who introduced himself as the CEO of Quantum Minerals.
Nvita was in the company of Lehman John Raymond who was introduced as his cousin. Later, they also met one Frank Kiteti, a Tanzanian national, said to be their agent in Tanzania.
The businessman told the court that they intended to buy 112 Kgs of gold.
“For this transaction, both Alain and Lehman had agreed to provide 31 Kgs of gold as collateral to cover for the previous payments of USD 400,000 that had been made earlier in 2022, and those to be made in February 2025,” Singh testified.
The USD 400,000 had been paid by Conti, during his visit to Kenya in June 2022 where he intended to buy 100Kgs of gold from one Alain Lukuse.
“They were therefore to ship 112 Kgs of gold to us but said we could carry 31 Kgs of gold with us if we wanted to. We chose to carry and this is when Daniel, through his company PATVAD Trading invoiced my company, Asianic Limited on 5th February 2024 for an amount of 162,420 Euros,” he added.
According to the businessman, the instructions were to pay the same to a Stanbic Bank account in the name of Mosota Abunga & Associates Advocates LLP.
The same day, Daniel allegedly invoiced his company 548,830 Euros which was also paid to the Mosota bank account, money alleged to be used to cover taxes.
Upon inquiry on why they were paying taxes again yet the USD 400,000 was to cover tax, they were informed that the money was now covered by the collateral 31 Kgs.
On 7th February 2024, Asianic was invoiced again with 14,112 Euros being freight charges, which was paid the advocate’s account.
Singh told the court that the 31 Kgs of gold had been kept at MySafe in village was to be taken with them to the airport as hand luggage.
The businessmen were to travel back on 9th February and therefore collected the 31 Kgs of gold from MySafe and went to Daniel’s office where it was divided into two consignments and packed in blue metallic boxes.
Singh said the boxes were sealed, signed and stamped adding that he even took photos and videos of the same.
He also took photos and videos of the documents provided and proceeded to the airport where they to wait for Daniel and Frank in the lounge.
“They would both come through the lounge in good time with the two split packages of gold (with documentation) which Marco and I were going to hand carry on the flight to Italy,” Singh said.
The court heard that the two businessmen waited at lounge until it was time to board their flight and when they called them, they were told that there was a problem with one of the documents.
Singh claims he hesitated getting on the flight before Frank finally called asking them to travel because it was not possible to resolve the issue at that instant.
It was alleged that one of the documents showed the wrong quantity of gold.
Later on, the complainant was told that a fine of 20 percent had been imposed on the value of the consignment totalling to USD 1,562,000 and if not paid, the consignment would be confiscated.
It was his testimony that Alain started putting pressure on him to assist them in resolving the issue.
After much convincing, Singh and his colleagues flew back to Kenya on 20th February 2024, and later ended up paying the USD 1.5 million.
However, since then until 20th June 2024, the consignment never got to them. They received excuse after excuse with attempts to make the businessman part with more money
He became suspicious and reported the matter to the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) where he recorded a statement leading to the arrest of Daniel, Alain and Frank.
