Taxi driver Vincent Mutuku jailed over fake Covid-19 certificates

Vincent Nzola Mutuku

Vincent Nzola Mutuku at the Milimani Law Courts on April 29,2021.

Photo credit: Richard Munguti | Nation Media Group

A taxi driver has been jailed for three months for attempting to use names of five tourists from Belarus to obtain Covid-19 clearance certificates from Amref Medical Centre.

Vincent Nzola Mutuku, 37, was, however, given an alternative fine Sh10,000. He admitted before Nairobi Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi that he presented five Kenyans to get Covid-19 clearance certificates.

The five posed as Maria Kapelevich, Alexander Kapelevich, Volha Mukha, Lidziya Smirnova and Pavel Germanovich at the Amref Medical Centre at Wilson Airport. The five claimed that they had not contracted Covid-19 during their stay in Kenya as tourists.

However, the arrangement failed after staff at the Amref Medical Centre questioned the nationality of the five Africans with Belarusian names. State prosecutors Kibiwott Kiprono and Angela Fuchaka told the court the five Kenyans have since disappeared.  

 “The five Belarusians who were clients of the accused (mutuku) were scheduled to fly back to their country and were required to have a Covid-19 clearance certificate,” Mr Kiprono told the court.

Flight to Europe

He said a tour guide called the accused from Amboseli National Park to make arrangements at Amref Medical Centre for the five tourists to be tested upon arrival from Amboseli since they had booked a flight to Europe.

The five, who had visited Nairobi and Amboseli national parks’ among other areas, had pledged to refund Mr Mutuku his expenses for the tests. 

 “The five later asked Mutunga to cancel the appointment he had made at Amref,” the court heard.

Mutuku made a second booking for his clients at the Lancet laboratories where they were to be tested and issued with Covid-19 clearance certificates.

“Instead of losing the money to Amref, Mutuku decided to take other people take the tests but questions on their nationalities arose,” the court heard.

He was given 14 days to appeal the sentence.