A Nairobi court has ordered five people suspected of conning a foreigner in a Sh5 million fake gold scam to be remanded until Thursday.
Awuyene Mbombo and Jackson Maina, who are directors at Airlink Freight Limited, were arrested last week on Thursday alongside Zakary Namakakola, Jeanclaud Munyampara Nyamgoyo and Amani Patrick Muluku at a house along Covenant Drive in Lavington, Nairobi county.
The suspects were arraigned before Milimani chief magistrate Martha Mutuku who ordered them to be detained to enable them to negotiate with the complainant in the case.
On Friday police were allowed to continue detaining the suspects for three days until yesterday.
Detectives led by corporal Ahmed Abdikadir had asked for seven days to complete investigations but senior principal magistrate Kennedy Cheruiyot who handled the case granted them three days.
The court heard that the suspects were arrested by detectives from the Serious Crime Unit at the DCI headquarters following a complaint filed by a Burkina Faso national who had been swindled “a substantial amount of money”.
The Burkinabe told police the suspects had promised to sell him gold but conned him Sh5 million between October 27 and November 16.
The suspects through their lawyers applied for the plea taking to be deferred until Friday, saying their clients were willing to settle the matter out of court.
“The matter is under negotiations and we pray that the court allows us to come back on Thursday for either plea taking or withdrawal of the case,”the court was told.
According to the charge sheet, the five, allegedly used fraudulent tricks and displayed heavy metal boxes packed with genuine gold bars and nuggets by falsely pretending that they were doing genuine gold business.
Mutuku allowed the application. The case will be heard on December 3.
