Police arrest woman who faked own kidnap, ran off with taxi driver

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) have arrested a married woman who allegedly ran away with a younger man and claimed to have been kidnapped.

Police say Jane Wairimu Ndung’u disappeared last Friday, September 17, leaving her husband Brian Mutuku worried about her whereabouts.

On the fateful day, Mutuku received a call from his wife claiming to have been kidnapped by unknown people who were demanding Sh200,000 as ransom, which prompting him to file a missing person report with DCI at Embakasi Police Station.

“She claimed to have been kidnapped as she was walking along Loita Street, in Nairobi’s central business district,” a report by DCI read.

However, as the detectives were pursuing the suspects, Mutuku and other relatives managed to raise Sh17,000 and sent it to the alleged kidnappers.

As the sleuths pursued the suspects, the family had no idea Wairimu had eloped with a local taxi driver, identified as Richard Mogire, to his one-bedroom house in Malaa, Machakos County.

Her relatives raised Sh40,000 which was then sent on Monday.

After receiving the money, police says, the duo made plans to travel to Mtito-a-Ndei to withdraw the said money, presumably to throw off detectives.

Trouble for the couple came when Mogire's girlfriend, a Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) student, demanded that he keep his promise to take her out that weekend.

To avoid arrest, Mogire reportedly used a different vehicle from the one he had used with Wairimu to pick the student from Juja.

“Mogire changed the vehicle he had used earlier to avoid detection, picked his main girlfriend from the Juja based university and went with her to the one-roomed house where he had stayed with Wairimu since her faked disappearance,” says a report by DCI.

The trio was arrested in Sagana on Wednesday and taken to Embakasi Police Station and will be arraigned in a Nairobi court on Thursday.

On her part, Wairimu explained that she had faked the kidnapping to get away from creditors.