High Court judge Hedwig Ong’undi on Tuesday evening ordered Equity Bank to transfer Sh19.6 million in three bank accounts to the government and ultimately to the Assets Recovery Agency.
The court said the money held at Equity Bank Donholm Branch in Nairobi, which was deposited in Mombasa between 2015 and 2017 and never withdrawn, were proceeds of crime.
The accounts belong to Pamela Abbo and court documents show she was unable to prove legitimate source of millions, which were believed to have come from her husband-- Alex Mukhwana Khisa who is an employee of the KRA.
The State has taken over millions of shillings belonging to the wife of a Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) employee after the High Court ruled that the cash is proceeds of crime.
High Court judge Hedwig Ong’undi on Tuesday evening ordered Equity Bank #ticker:EQTY to transfer Sh19.6 million in three bank accounts to the government and ultimately to the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA).
The court said the money held at Equity Bank Donholm Branch in Nairobi, which was deposited in Mombasa between 2015 and 2017 and never withdrawn, were proceeds of crime.
The accounts belong to Pamela Abbo and court documents show she was unable to prove legitimate source of millions, which were believed to have come from her husband-- Alex Mukhwana Khisa who is an employee of the KRA.
“The Sh19.6 million are proceeds of crime… the above funds shall be forfeited to the Government and transferred to the applicant (ARA),” Justice Ong’undi ruled.
This makes it the second high- profile transfer of assets from individuals following court actions that ruled the properties were linked to fraudulent dealings.
In September, the State took ownership of a Sh48.5 million luxury five-bedroom apartment in Lavington, Nairobi, bought with funds stolen from the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF)
In the latest case, the asset recovery agency reckons the accounts at Equity Bank were built by regular deposits averaging above Sh100, 000 from common people and agents, especially Equity Bank agents.
Some of the common depositors that alerted investigators were Scolah Wanjiku who made 70 cash deposits of Sh2.51 million, Eazzy gent made 104 cash deposits of Sh5.2 million while Fesco Agencies made 38 deposits totalling Sh460,000.
Some 28 cash deposits of Sh6.2 million were made at various points in Mombasa while five deposits of Sh1.5 million had been made from Donholm.
“A random perusal of these accounts reveals that on average there is no single day that the said accounts received less than Sh100,000 in deposits,” court documents show.
Ms Abbo said the fact that Mr Khisa is her husband is no proof that the funds held in her account were deposited on his behalf.
She claims the huge cash deposits are income from a transport business she co-owns with one Samson Waweru whom investigators say failed to show up and offer evidence of their dealings. Further, she claims she runs a cereals business in which she purchases merchandise in Busia and supplies various markets and transport them on motorbikes. Ms Abbo say she moves proceeds to Nairobi in cash and deposits in small regular bits.
She also claims to deal in sugar and banana business with contacts in Mombasa whom she failed to produce.
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