3 KRA imposters charged with attempted extortion, freed on bond
John Odhiambo, Joel Omino and Eroick Atanga at the Kibera Law Courts on September 5, 2020.
What you need to know:
- Police say they wanted to extort money from Patiala Distillers Director Francis Kiriiro at Total Petrol Station in Airport View along Mombasa Road, Nairobi, while threatening to accuse him of tax evasion.
- It is said the three claimed they had an investigation report detailing how Mr Kiriiro’s company had been skirting around the tax obligation and demanded the bribe to drop the matter.
Three men who allegedly received a Sh500,000 bribe from a businessman while pretending they were officers from the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) have been charged with attempted extortion.
Erick Otieno Atanga, Joel Omino and John Odhiambo were arrested last Friday.
Police say they wanted to extort money from Patiala Distillers Director Francis Kiriiro at Total Petrol Station in Airport View along Mombasa Road, Nairobi, while threatening to accuse him of tax evasion.
They allegedly committed the crime on August 28.
The three are facing a charge of conspiracy to defraud, where they are accused of pretending they were in a position to stop KRA investigations into Mr Kiriiro’s company in the area of tax evasion.
Mr Omino is separately charged with impersonation for allegedly introducing himself to Mr Kiriio as a KRA officer and showing him a staff card which later turned up to be forged.
He is a former Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) employee.
Mr Atanga is facing a similar charge for allegedly introducing himself as an official of the Kenya Tax Justice Association – an NGO.
What happened
It is said the three claimed they had an investigation report detailing how Mr Kiriiro’s company had been skirting around the tax obligation and demanded the bribe to drop the matter.
They used a computer-generated dossier purported to be from the NGO.
Officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Nairobi arrested the three at a restaurant inside the petrol station moments after they received the money from Mr Kiriiro, not knowing it was treated.
The director reported the matter to police after sealing the deal with the suspects and the DCI requested him to withdraw the money which was treated, photographed and serialised then returned to him.
He later handed over the cash in an envelope.
Mr Atanga was captured on CCTV footage receiving the envelope and confirming that it contained the amount agreed, before they handed over the ‘dossier’ to Mr Kiriiro.
The DCI officers then swung into action and arrested the three immediately.
They had sent a letter to the director through WhatsApp, threatening to leak his business’ secrets and policies if he did not give them the money.
The suspects denied the charges before Senior Principal Magistrate Philip Mutua of the Kibera Law Courts and were freed on Sh300,000 bond or Sh100,000 cash bail each.
The case will be mentioned on September 9.
