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Bundles of Kenyan currency notes.
Lately, there has been a lot of animated talk, reporting, and dramatic social media posts about money stolen from a food programme in the US state of Minnesota ending up in Nairobi’s real estate market. It all needs some perspective.
Somali-linked fraud in the US is estimated at $1 billion (Sh129 billion). This involves people tricking the government out of money meant for schoolchildren—specifically through an NGO called Feeding Our Future. In that case alone, about $250 million (Sh32.25 billion) was allegedly stolen.
While that sounds substantial, it is a tiny slice of the $200 billion to $500 billion (Sh25.8 trillion to Sh64.5 trillion) stolen across the US during the pandemic. Most of that was taken by regular American business owners and domestic gangs. The Somali-linked cases represent a small fraction—less than one per cent—of the total. In the vast world of American crime, they are still amateurs.
Stolen money too often ends up in buildings because real estate is the world’s best “laundromat.” If you put stolen money in a bank, the government can freeze it with one click. But if you build a 20-storey apartment block in Kilimani, it is much harder for them to seize. You can lie about a building’s value to hide your cash, and once it is finished, you are not seen as a thief; you are a successful developer.
Wash-wash money
The scale is breathtaking. In the USA, it is estimated that over $2.3 billion (Sh296.7 billion) was laundered through real estate between 2015 and 2021. Across the continent, the "curse of the crane" is just as strong. Nigeria sees over $15 billion (Sh1.93 trillion) annually in illegal flows, much of it going into property. South Africa loses about $10 billion (Sh1.29 trillion) every year to dirty money, with luxury property a top hiding spot. In Egypt, trade cheating alone reportedly accounts for $1.6 billion (Sh206.4 billion), with new cities like New Cairo built on this ghost cash.
In Kenya, it is alleged that part of the property boom of the last 30 years has been fuelled by what President William Ruto’s economic adviser David Ndii famously dubbed “wash-wash” money. Even when the economy was struggling during Daniel arap Moi’s final years, luxury apartments kept going up. This growth was partly pushed by stolen cash—from old government scandals like Goldenberg (which led to an estimated loss of over 10 per cent of Kenya's annual GDP) to new corruption in the counties.
Somali capital has a specific history in this mix. It began in earnest after the collapse of the Somali state in 1991. Initially, it was “refugee capital”—legitimate survivalist trade that transformed Eastleigh into a commercial powerhouse. Over time, this evolved into a sophisticated regional network. However, because in Kenya’s ethnic-driven politics the Somali community is sometimes seen as “outsiders,” their investments are scrutinised more than the quiet, systemic looting by local “indigenous” elites.
For years, some also blamed Somali “pirate money” for high rents. But a report by the World Bank and Interpol, “Pirate Trails”, showed that piracy only brought in about $413 million (Sh53.2 billion) over seven years. That is less than eight per cent—a mere drop in the ocean—compared to the $5.4 billion (Sh696 billion) remitted back home legally by hardworking Kenyans abroad in the same period.
A piece of Nairobi sky
However, if you took all the dirty money out today, the market would likely collapse. According to a 2024 report in Business Daily, the Business Registration Service (BRS) found that over half of the companies reported for money laundering were in construction. Experts from the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) suggest that without this cash, high-end building projects would drop by 40 per cent. That is why Nairobi has plenty of luxury apartments that sit empty; they were built to hide money, not to house families.
Yet, while we are fixated on money from Minnesota, we are less agitated about the massive amount of wealth leaving Africa. Over the last 20 years, $1 trillion (Sh129 trillion) has been stolen from Africa. This money is hidden in luxury flats in London or penthouses in Dubai.
US federal agents are now hunting these assets down. In one case, a defendant named Liban Alishire agreed to forfeit a five-bedroom apartment in Nairobi and a resort property at Karibu Palms in Diani, bought with stolen cash. Other court documents show brothers texting photos of stacks of cash—over $270,000 (Sh34.8 million) at a time—to buy land in Mandera and stakes in Nairobi high-rises.
It is a strange, global game. In the past, colonial powers took Africa’s wealth; today’s rogue capitalism has turned that theft into a business model. We are seeing a messy kind of history: money meant to feed American children is smuggled back to build towers in a city once reserved for colonial masters. It is globalisation’s biggest joke: a refugee from a war the world forgot outsmarts a superpower to buy a piece of the Nairobi sky. This is the hallmark of a broken world where money flies across borders while people remain caged behind them.
The author is a journalist, writer and curator of the Wall of Great Africans. X@cobbo3
