A couple facing charges of human trafficking has lost a luxurious vehicle and a lorry to the State after the High Court ruled that they were proceeds of crime.
High Court judge Esther Maina agreed with the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) that the two motor vehicles were used by Elosy Kendi Mutwiri and Felix Mutwiri Muthamia as a decoy to disguise the source of the funds.
The two vehicles were purchased using loans from Situ Investments Ltd and NCBA Bank, and the judge noted that the loan repayments were from the illicit trade.
“It follows, therefore, that since the respondents (the couple) had no legal source of income, the monies they were receiving into their accounts were from the offence of trafficking in persons,” said the judge.
Justice Maina said the loans borrowed were decoys intended to conceal and disguise the source of the funds.
Mr Jillo Rufus, an investigator with the agency, said the couple is linked to the trafficking of 106 Ethiopians arrested in a house in Karura Estate in Ruiru on July 12, 2021.
The Ethiopian nationals, aged between 15 and 40 years, had no identification or travel documents.
Mr Mutwiri and his spouse were charged before a Kibera court in 2021, but the case is yet to be determined.
The agency added that he was intercepted on December 25, 2021, along Nkubu-Chuka Road, ferrying 31 people and appeared before a Nkubu magistrate while holding improperly documented persons.
On the vehicles, the agency, through Mohammed Adow, submitted that Mrs Mutwiri had received deposits amounting to Sh8.6 million between May 6, 2020 and June 9, 2021, into her Equity Bank account.
The court heard that she paid a Sh850,000 cash deposit for one of the vehicles and made instalments for between Sh50,000 and Sh800,000.
When asked the source of the money, Mrs Mutwiri said she was self-employed, earning an income of between Sh251,000 and Sh500,000 from running a grocery.
The agency dismissed her defence, saying it was not satisfactory.
The agency said for the second vehicle, the loans to offset the amount were made through M-Pesa payments.
Situ Investments opposed the application to forfeit one of the vehicles to the State, saying it had a balance of Sh1.06 million, which had since risen to Sh1.8 million after the couple started defaulting on loan repayments in June 2021.
The company said it wanted to seize the vehicle and auction it to recover its money but was blocked by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
NCBA said the outstanding loan stood at Sh3.6 million as of July 4, 2023, when the repayment fell into arrears.
The judge dismissed the defence advanced by the lenders, stating that the allegations that the couple was involved in human trafficking were not controverted.
