Suspected fraudster in Sh150k car deal con game charged in court

A man who allegedly conned a businessman of Sh150,000, while posing as a female customer interested in purchasing his car, has been charged with obtaining the money by false pretences.

Bob Ngome Nyongesa was arraigned before the Kibera Law Courts to answer to the charges of obtaining the money from Said Mwangi Ali after falsely pretending to be a potential buyer of his Mercedes Benz which the complainant had advertised for sale on an online marketing platform.

The accused, who in 2012 was convicted for a similar offence by a Kakamenga magistrate, is said to have posed as a prospective buyer of the vehicle on the online site and had a conversation with Mr Ali while purportedly to be traveling from Narok to Nairobi to have a look at the vehicle and seal the deal.

According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the accused had expressed willingness to buy the vehicle for Sh1.4 million.

Convinced that Mr Nyongesa was a genuinely interested in purchasing the vehicle, Mr Ali sent him more pictures of the vehicle, including the interior and other parts.

The accused is said to have later contacted Mr Ali to inform him that he had knocked down some livestock on his way to Nairobi and that he needed some money to settle the matter before proceeding with the journey.

The suspect allegedly sent Mr Ali images of livestock carcasses lying on a road and his purportedly damaged vehicle.

Mr Nyongesa, who was posing as a woman, told Mr Ali that he risked being lynched by the owners of the livestock if he failed to pay Sh150,000. He asked Mr Ali to send him the money with a promise to refund the amount once he arrived in Nairobi.

But upon receipt of the cash, the accused promptly stopped communicating with the complainant. But he was later arrested by detectives from Langata DCI offices at his home in Rongai on April 10, 2022.

According to detectives, the accused has been posing as a white woman by the name Ryan Britney to defraud unsuspecting Kenyans.

Prosecution told the court to consider that Nyongesa is a convicted fraudster and that several people came forward to lodge complaints against him after he was arrested.

Mr Nyongesa denied the charges before Senior Principal Magistrate Esther Bhoke and was released on a surety bond of Sh300,000 and an alternative cash bail of Sh200,000. 

The case will be mentioned on April 23, 2022. 

In the previous case where he was convicted, Mr Nyongesa was charged with the offence of obtaining money by false pretense contrary to section 313 of the Penal Code. 

The particulars of the offence were that on the November 26, 2012, at Lubao area in Kakamega central, with intent to defraud, Mr Nyongesa obtained from Mr Mohammed Abdallah Osman a sum of Sh250,000 by pretending that he could sell him 6kg of gold.

He was convicted of the offence and sentenced to serve an 18-month jail term. He appealed at the Kakamega High Court and lost in the appeal before Justice Said Chitemwbe in a ruling delivered on September 18, 2014.