When Twitter love victims realised they had been defrauded

Nearly two weeks ago, on February 25, one of the victims of Mr Emmanuel Gift Masinde’s Twitter con-game felt she had had enough, and decided to expose his conniving ways.

“It is my personal responsibility to ensure that no other business or individual falls prey [to] the hands of the very crafty @Masinde001 (Mr Masinde’s Twitter handle). I will remain extremely [UNASHAMED] in exposing this despicable man and his lying ways to con unsuspecting women out of hundreds of thousands (sic),” the woman, who is a director of a big company within Nairobi CBD, wrote on her now estranged lover’s Twitter handle, taking off the lid.

In another tweet she said, “Na mkae mkijua (beware) @Masinde001 is a proper con. Stay warned (sic).”

The director had sent to Mr Masinde, 27, more than Sh1 million after he falsely promised to help her acquire a BMW X-5 vehicle. She explains that the transaction documents he presented was what raised her eyebrows.

“At this point I began questioning the authenticity of our transaction. I demanded to see the car but was met with a harsh response and I decided to ask to have my money back,” she said.

Fake documents

He then began sending her fake documents of transfer via real-time gross settlement, a system that allows for instantaneous sending of money and/or securities and electronic fund transfers.

He fabricated emails allegedly showing initiation of the transaction.

“Of course, I never saw the money reflect in my account, and at this point he stopped picking my calls.”

The woman decided to involve his ‘mother’ and ‘sister’, but this, too, bore no fruit.

Mr Masinde, whose swindling ways we detailed in the first of a two-part series published in Saturday Nation, has denied allegations made by at least seven women, who, together, say they wired about Sh3.5 million to him after he separately made them believe he loved them and would marry them.

Refund demands

The Nation reached out to him yet again on Saturday, but his phone was switched off for most of the day.

Earlier, Mr Masinde had denied the fraud allegations made against him by the seven young women, who have now formed a WhatsApp group named ‘Co-wives’, and are demanding refunds.

“All that information is not true...I have not refused to pay them, I am willing to pay because they are just my friends and they helped us through a very bad situation. I have never slept with them; otherwise, I have no further comment, my lawyers will be in touch,” said Mr Masinde when contacted on Thursday.

We tried calling him again so that he could clarify the allegations, but he declined to return calls.

Mr Masinde also lied to the girls he dated that his mother was a former senior official at the National Land Commission, but the woman in question denied knowing him when we reached out to her.

“I don’t know Gift Masinde. I cannot talk about this in front of people, I am on a construction site,” she said in a telephone interview.

When the Nation called back two hours later, she said she was driving on Thika Road and was stuck in traffic.

“I do not like picking up calls while in traffic.”

We called three hours later, but she diverted all our calls to voicemail, and so did her daughter.

According to a lecturer, who Mr Masinde defrauded more than Sh550,000 and whose account of the matter we captured in Saturday’s story, it is the tweet by the company director that opened her eyes.

Other women started sharing their stories, having suffered at the hands of Mr Masinde. In the end, this brought together seven strangers, who formed the ‘Co-wives’ WhatsApp group with the aim of seeking justice.

Anguish

“We decided to form a WhatsApp group to chart the way forward, besides helping each other get through this because it has affected all of us emotionally. Gift and I started having constant fights when I told him to give me back my money.

“That boy blatantly told me that my money was so little it could not even pay for his car insurance or buy tyres for any of his vehicles. I had made this very clear, that he should never ask me for any money for whatever reason before paying what he owed.

“I also told him we were done and all that was left between us was business. I asked him to give me back my money and the rat race began,” she told the Nation.

The mother of one disclosed that the swindler managed to fool even her trusted friends.

“My girlfriends adored him, they encouraged me to pursue this relationship in the first place, despite every fibre in me telling me otherwise, but I chose to listen to them. That’s on me, though; my closest and best friend, who has since day one been ‘team Gift’, feels so bad and blames herself for encouraging me to give him the Sh550,000 and other amounts that I would send him from time to time.

“He is very good in bed and whenever we would make love, I started asking myself where a dying cancer patient was getting all that energy,” the lecturer told the Nation, further disclosing that part of her money “furnished” Mr Masinde’s house, which she never visited.

Mr Masinde continued preying on the women, even after the exposé on his Twitter page.

“He hit me up, saying he wanted to vent, while adding he had messed up as someone he apparently helped was harassing him and he needed a way out. I did not respond as I had seen the Twitter exposé about him,” said a UK nursing student who also fell for Mr Masinde’s tricks.

“Because of endless back-and-forth over refunding my Sh1.22 million, the lawyer who was swindled reached out to a close friend of hers who works at Strathmore University where Mr Masinde claimed to have graduated from with a degree in Actuarial Science, but, as she suspected, the man was nowhere in the institution’s database.

“Her friend also told her that Mr Masinde’s name was not on the graduation list of the class of 2016, as he had purported, though stories of his swindling of women were rampant.

“So, who do I reach out to? His half-brother, with whom I schooled in primary, and to my surprise, he informs me that the family does not actually know where Gift stays and that he quit school in 2015.

“I told them that Mr Masinde lived with his mother in Runda, but to my shock, the brother insisted that he did not know any person who goes by the (alleged mother’s) name and that Gift’s biological mother is a teacher in Kimilili, Bungoma County, while his father is a lecturer at Kenyatta University. He lives in Kahawa Wendani and not Runda,” the lawyer, who was once head-over-heels with the love rat, revealed to the Nation.

‘Runda’ mother

On February 25, one of the victims called Mr Masidne’s ‘Runda mother’ on her direct line, and narrated to her how he had swindled the girls. According to the victim, the ‘mother’ asked ‘her daughter’ to get in touch with the lawyer who had been conned out of Sh1.22 million, which she did, and promised that they would refund the cash within two weeks.

They told her that her money had been used to service a family loan, which begs the question: What exactly is the relationship between the former senior official at the National Land Commission and Mr Gift Masinde?

“I got so depressed when I realised I wasn’t getting my money back, I used to cry myself to sleep. I felt so stupid I started losing my temper on useless things. Mostly, I was worried, worried that I was in this awful place.

“I became paranoid and terrified. I was defenceless. I just froze. I didn’t even report it to the police or my family because how crazy would I look? Listen, I’m on my third (academic) degree, but here I am making very naïve and stupid decisions,” the lecturer opened up.

Insults

“One thing about him is that he really feels entitled to other people’s money. If you don't send, he'll insult you and your whole clan. I remember when I tried to get my money back from him, I was then at Steers with my friends having lunch and I received a call from him saying his car had been confiscated by cops at Karen Police Station and they required Sh30,000 for it to be released.

“I told him to get to town so that I could give him the money. He got there. I went to Co-op Bank, withdrew the funds and gave him,” another of Mr Masinde’s victims, who joined Co-wives on Friday, narrates.

“Again, he came up with a story about his Toyota V8 vehicle breaking down and needing urgent repair and he wanted me to give him Sh110,000. At first I was hesitant, and I really wish I had followed my gut instinct, but he kept pressuring me and so I gave in, went to the bank and did the transfer. The tactic here is to pressure you back-to-back until I could not think, because I loved him and he needed me to have his back,” she explains.

Interestingly, a 25-year-old woman, who almost fell for the con-game that would have seen her lose Sh700,000, says she survived “by the grace of God, her instincts and wit”.

“Gift and I met on Twitter like my other ‘co-wives’ and if you notice he is very selective as most of those women are super learned, ambitious and work so hard; he does not just target any girl on Twitter and has tact,” the high-end real estate agent based in Nairobi said.

She says he swept her off her feet with the first Twitter message.

“Uuuuuuhmmm …. not important but… at this very moment your mind watch is correct on the time and date… beautiful watch too,” the cheeky pick-up line that came with a photo of his gold-plated wrist watch captured her, just like that.

“Gift is very gifted when it comes to playing with words, I could feel my ovaries twerk before he said anything else and to be honest, in my heart, I said yes to being his woman at that moment even before he asked,” the woman confesses.

In no time, they would be lost in deep romantic conversations.

“He fondly called me ‘mumama wangu’ and he did this in a very sexy voice, I would melt away. It, however, took me no time to notice lots of red flags.”

She says as a matter of principle, she does not entertain giving men money.

“Mr Masinde would be so angry with me, we fought a lot because I learnt early enough to see though his main tactic, which is word play, apart from creating a crisis, which he expects you to have his back and come through for him with money, lots of money. In fact, whenever he requested money and I refused, he would get really angry.”

The woman would change the subject whenever the swindler would bring up his favourite topic.

“Babe, show me your tongue,” reads a response to a text message from Mr Masinde, further asking her to send him Sh30,000.

Investigations by the Nation also established that Mr Masinde had a very interesting ‘selection’ method as all of his known victims have a low to moderate social media presence and use ‘Twitter for iPhone’, with the latter giving a hint of their financial status.

“On the day before the Twitter exposé, he took me to a KCB branch where he wanted me to take a loan of Sh700,000. He had actually succeeded in convincing me, but as we entered the bank, something he did made me totally change my mind.”

Fake cheque

The real estate agent, who has a background in accounting and finance, explains that Mr Masinde showed her a fake ‘maturing’ bank cheque of Sh5 million in an effort to make her more confident that he was going to refund the cash she was about to borrow for him.

“He did not know that I know how to read the codes on cheques, and I noted that the one he showed me was actually from 2018. I think he forgot to cut that part out.”

I pretended to go in there to get the money, took a walk, greeted people then came back and told him that their systems had delays and she had been told to come back another day. She says the swindler got mad with her.

“He really abused me, saying he does not date broke girls and in fact mocked the fact that I live in Ruaka, while he resides in ‘Runda’,” she said.

Investigations

At the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) Police Station, where the Nairobi-based company director who was conned out of Sh936,000 reported the matter under OB30/21/2/2022, officers confirmed that they are investigating the matter.

“We have officially received two complaints about Mr Masinde where he is accused of swindling two women. To be clear, these complaints were made recently and we only know of the ones made at our station,” an officer said.

“We have presented sworn affidavits to the banks where the transactions happened and are waiting for them to respond.”

Mr Masinde, despite causing women who only sought his love a lot of pain, anguish and frustration, is still walking around a free man, most probably still preying on his next victims.

“I am now seeing a psychologist and have to pay for sessions because this has immensely affected my health and state of mind,” the company director disclosed.

She has had to involve her father, whom Mr Masinde met and served false hope of repayment with falsified documents.

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