His should have been a happy comeback to his homeland after having lived and worked hard in the US.

But Captain Kariuki Wachira’s return to Kenya,where he had hoped to savour the fruits of his investments made while abroad,has turned into a nightmare.

His Sh25 million real estate investment that could have been the first of many is now the subject of a land ownership tussle after he found an imposter had sold off the property.

The property is now valued at Sh65 million.












Captain Kariuki Wachira,who claims to be the owner of a house in Nyari estate Nairobi,which is at the centre of a Sh25million fraud case.





Wachira,who lives with his family and works in America as a pilot,bought a prime piece of land in the up market Nyari estate,in 2005.

Dream home

He constructed a double storey four-bedroom house,complete with a garage and staff quarters.

It was the dream home he hoped to retire to when he returned with his family.

Little did he know someone would take advantage of his absence to transfer the property and sell his house.

'It saddens me that my efforts and hard work have been reduced to forged documents. Someone has the audacity to steal such an investment that does not belong to him. No way!' an angry Wachira said.

This comes just weeks after The Standard highlighted fears expressed by Kenyans abroad that some corrupt Government officials have been conniving with impostors to sell off their property.

Yesterday’s edition of The Standard’s CCI pullout magazine highlighted a story of a 70-year-old widow whose flat in Eastleigh estate was fraudulently transferred to someone else while she was holidaying in the US.

Valid documents

According to Wachira,who has all documentary evidence,trouble began in 2007,when a Mr Michael Mwangi Ngugi claimed to have been given power to act on behalf of Monicah James (Wachira’s wife) using a forged power of attorney alleged to have been drawn by a city advocate,who has since denied the claims.

Ngugi as ‘vendor’,with the use of the power of attorney and through another advocate prepared ownership transfer agreement documents on behalf of Monica.

But the transfer ‘agreement’ lists the wrong passport number of Monica though that did not stop the transfer of ownership of the property to a Mr Joseph Muriithi Kanyita (purchaser) at Sh4.2 million.

'In fact,all these people share an office,' Wachira said,showing the passport numbers of his wife and voluminous documents of the house in contest.

Later this year,after the alleged fraudulent transfer was sealed,Mr Kanyita said he had obtained a loan using the house as security and then sold the house to Mr John Maina Mburu for Sh25 million,of which Sh20 million was taken as redemption amount to settle the bank loan.







The house in Nyari estate Nairobi,which Captain Kariuki Wachira says is his.







Sealed deal

After the sale agreement deal was sealed in January,according to Wachira,Mburu moved into the house and chased away Wachira’s caretakers.

While in the US,Wachira had the incident reported to Nyari Police Post,but no action was taken.

'I called the station and even sent my guards to report the incident,but no one was willing to assist,' Wachira said.

Wachira then took the first flight home to confront the ‘new owner’ of his house.

'It was a scuffle here. I cannot allow anyone to sit on my sweat,whatever the deal was or whatever happened,it doesn’t concern me,' he says.

Protect new owner

He arrived at the locked gate and banged on it,but he was shocked to find police were ready to protect the ‘new owner’.

'I am so mad the police sent officers today to block me from gaining access to my compound,' he said.

'They are partisan,why didn’t they do the same when I called that someone had invaded my property,' Wachira asks,almost in tears.

Wachira faults the Land Ministry officials for conniving with cons to doctor documents that might have been used to defraud him of his property.

Although Lands Minister James Orengo has initiated an intensive investigation on senior staff members at the ministry,who are allegedly participating in the issuance of fake title deeds,Wachira and others who have been kicked out of their property are left clutching original papers,but in the cold.

'If the Government cannot protect us from these cartels,it means there is no need to invest at home,' Wachira said.

Question,

Why did the gentleman register the house in his wife's name?Could she have connived with the swindler ?

Lyanne - Fighting back needs money and time. imagine what it will take you to get time off from work to sort out such an issue,kama uko Kenya,it might be easier to fight back immediately but it's still the same thing time from work and money.

This guy is all the way in the states,it's not so easy for him to take an 'unscheduled leave' to take care of personal issues. His scenario is really discouraging,and a painful lesson and wake-up call to diasporians who are dreaming of following the same path as him.

We are perceived to have no regard for human life thanks to our disputed election and the aftermath,and most recently the extra-judicial killings. And now we also have no regard to property rights,that's quite unfortunate.

Kuanzia NSE to Ministry of Lands and a Judiciary which has ground to a halt. It's terrible.


Investing in stocks without doing the homework that lets you arrive at a fair estimate of the value of business it represents,is like buying a house without ever having stepped inside.

Outrageous,disgusting!

Though such a thing can happen anywhere,it is more likely to happen in Kenya. It is unimaginable how such levels of illegal collusions are abbetted by all levels of government.

My plans have changed with immediate effect! It is time to seek opportunities elsewhere.

Its very sad but such stories are very rumpant in Kenya. Even family members cannot be trusted to invest for you back home when you're abroad! We live in very bad and hard times...people want to live off other people's sweat:(

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't..

It is saddening to learn that outright thuggery can be viewed as normal in a society. People con others all the time,but through more wily methods not the callous corruption so evident in government and citizenry in Kenya.

No wonder people also show scant respect for life too. It is the same trait.

Curiously,would anyone attempt the same trickery on a property having a mortgage balance? i.e would they be willing to steal the property and the mortgage balance too?

I don't mean to be insensitive but to me this story has so many gaps. I have been involved in the purchase of property in Nairobi and the process was really rigourous,it involved so many lawyers and paperwork and literally takes forever.

I don't understand how this guy could have his property sold twice without his knowledge,

- the second buyer (assuming he was the innocent buyer) had to come to view what he was buying,why didn't the owners caretakers tell him about this before the purchase was done.

- Again,the second buyers' lawyer should have done the usual land search and other due diligence,unless he was part of the collusion which would void the sale to the second buyer.

- How could this property be used to secure a loan by the first buyer,which bank is this. Besides,the rational move by the first buyer would have been to leave the bank with the property and keep the Sh.20m loan.

- And finally,the first buyer by divulging the details of the amounts he made from the proceeds should be aware that under the law all those proceeds (25M) will be recovered whether he purchased the property knowing it was stolen or not.

I am sorry if the story is true but I can't help picking up so many missing pieces in it,

A 65m ($1m) house is not a pencil that just gets stolen and life goes on. I don't understand this story.

Another piece of Kenya's Journalistic masterpieces








I guess if you can't win with facts,you can always pen bile-laced,xenophobic rants to distract everyone.

Indeed this is a sad story which goes to show one of many major failures of the government to protect its citizens and their rights to own property.It doesnt make sense for government officials to travel to foreign countries and tell kenyans or foreigners to invest in the country yet they(the govt) cannot protect the basic right of one to own property.well on that rant,i happen to know the victim Mr Wachira and the first buyer Mr. Murithi from a visit to san diego back in 2004.They both lived there but Mr Murithi moved back to kenya sometime back and i assume he must have known that Mr Wachira was building in kenya.Mr Murithi was known to pull some shady deals even when lived back here in the states including abandoning his property in the states when he moved back to kenya.I wonder what the law in kenya says about forging documents and selling other peoples property.The govt needs to shut down the lands ministry,clean it up top to bottom as they send people to kamiti for a very long time.Kenyans ought to be very outraged about this.

@ITZ

You just confirmed my suspicions,this is all a con job. All the characters in this story are lying through their teeth. They probably created the entire scam.

This story lacks mention of any specific people and does not demonstrate how the lands ministry was involved in the scam yet it heeps all the blame on the government.

Now ITZ is claiming that the owner and the first buyer know each other and lived together in the US.

The question now is who do they want to con.


I guess if you can't win with facts,you can always pen bile-laced,xenophobic rants to distract everyone.

I don't think I said they lived in the same house,I said they lived together in the US,these are 2 different statements

I guess if you can't win with facts,you can always pen bile-laced,xenophobic rants to distract everyone.