Two individuals have been held for seven days on suspicion of forging of logbooks.
Timothy Mwangi and Peter Nyaga will spend their Christmas vacations behind bars as investigators wrap up their investigations into their roles in the high-level scam.
This came after a Makadara court granted police the right to detain them until December 31 while the investigation is ongoing.
Their arrest came as a result of the DCI’s investigation into how corrupt officials at the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) conspired with rogue workers working at microfinance institutions and street traders to defraud car owners.
Detectives learned that a single motor vehicle registration number and logbook would be registered to several vehicles, and the false logbook would be used to acquire loans from banks and microfinance companies.
Before the genuine owner of the logbook knows that his logbook has obtained a loan, auctioneers from the microfinance institution would forcefully visit on his house, threatening to sell the car for failing to service the debts.
Cybercrime experts based at the DCI headquarters have since joined their counterparts seconded to the NTSA to ferret out the crooked NTSA officials behind this high-level scam, which has left motorists concerned that their vehicles may have already been used as collateral to secure loans for shadowy individuals.
On December 21, Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi paid a visit to the agency and pledged to take action as soon as the fraud of illicit manufacturing of phoney documents became public.
The CS, who was joined by top ministry officials, read them the riot act and ordered them to quickly put their house in order.
Detectives visited the NTSA offices and are focusing on, among others, a new trend at the authority whereby the forced transfer of documents happens, prompting fraud.
The investigation established that motor vehicle registration number KCU 244A, was genuinely registered to a Nissan Serena belonging to the genuine owner Beatrice Kerubo, the woman whose husband almost caught a heart attack after auctioneers blocked his way along the Thika Superhighway demanding the vehicle.
The sleuths also discovered that the two suspects had acquired over Sh4 million from MyCredit and Bidii Credit limited, using one logbook.
This is after Bidii Credit Limited advanced Sh2.1 million to Timothy Mwangi on April 20, 2021, and before they collected the joint ownership logbook from NTSA, discovered that the logbook already had been transferred to someone else.
Further investigations into this scam revealed that Mwangi’s accomplice had used the same logbook to secure a facility of Sh 2.2 million from MyCredit Limited on May 27, 2021.
This revelation coupled with last week’s discovery of hundreds of genuine logbooks at a cybercafé in Ngara, further cast the NTSA on the spot for double registration of vehicles and loss of vehicles belonging genuine owners to fraudsters.
The scandal comes even after the government made changes at the agency early this year to enhance service delivery.
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