On Monday 22nd 2021, news sites across Kenya broke a story about attempted bribery of a Journalist by a Pubic Relations (PR) firm affiliated with British American Tobacco (BAT).

Engage Burson Cohn & Wolfe or Engage BCW is said to have attempted to bribe a scribe Edwin Okoth ostensibly to kill a story he was investigating about the cigarette manufacturer.

It was the Bureau of Investigative Journalists that had first received the story as an exclusive.

In the story, screenshots of communications between Senior Partner at Engage BCW Carolie Muthaura and the journalist was leaked.

On the media, you would expect that her pictures are all over but they are not. This is how most of Kenyan crooks, especially gold scammers and drug dealers operate. They erase their presence online by paying Google.

Today, Kenyans took to social media to condemn the firm for corruption and trying to silence the exposé on BAT’s activities.

Through the Twitter Hastag #BATagencyExposed, Kenyans on Twitter revealed more abou the rot at Engage BCW.

Mr Edwin Okoth was investigating BAT’s activities in Kenya on behalf of the Bureau when last month he was offered a bribe by an Engage BCW employee in exchange for details of the investigation. These are some of the conversation with the CEO carol Muthaura.#BATagencyExposed pic.twitter.com/cKSNyIcdbC

— Kawangware Finest ™ (Geoffrey Moturi) (@cbs_ke) February 26, 2021

Some called for her to resign for the scandal

https://twitter.com/Luhya_Finest/status/1365331250433712132?s=20

https://twitter.com/oty_otieno/status/1365330445232197632?s=20

For the better part of the afternoon, Twitter trends had both “#BATagencyExposed’ and Carol Muthaura’ as trending topics. More can be seen by liking here.

The scandal came within hours after WPP has suspended CEO of one of its local affiliates Scan Group. Engage BCW is also part of the WPP Group.

BAT immediately parted ways with Engage BCW after the news broke.

Caroline Muthaura has been with the firm for more than 5 years. On the media, you would expect that her pictures are all over but they are not. This is how most of Kenyan crooks operate. Her social media pages conta

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BAT’s PR agency tried to bribe Bureau’s Kenyan reporter