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Festus Arasa Omwamba, the 33-year-old man whom the National Intelligence Service has accused of recruiting 1,000 Kenyans to fight for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.
Festus Arasa Omwamba had teetered along the thin line between notoriety and anonymity, but which have all culminated into trouble and made the 33-year-old one of the most wanted individuals by police and intelligence officers.
In just nine months, he has been accused of defrauding desperate job seekers, attempting to fraudulently obtain money from a dead man’s bank account, and of working as a mercenary who helped recruit at least 1,000 Kenyans into Russia’s military.
In between that, the registered United Democratic Alliance member engineered the removal of nominated senator Gloria Orwoba from office, by filing an internal complaint with his party.
The High Court in October dismissed Ms Orwoba’s appeal against a Political Parties Disputes Tribunal decision which also declined to quash her expulsion from UDA and removal as a nominated senator.
A National Intelligence Service (NIS) dossier read to MPs on February 18, 2026, indicated that a stop order – a directive barring an individual from leaving the country – has been issued against Mr Omwamba for his alleged role in luring Kenyans to their death on the frontlines of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Festus Arasa Omwamba, the 33-year-old man whom the National Intelligence Service has accused of recruiting 1,000 Kenyans to fight for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.
Kenya’s spy agency told MPs that Mr Omwamba’s firm, Global Face Human Resource Ltd, while operating without a license from the National Employment Agency, worked with unnamed individuals in Moscow to recruit at least 1,000 Kenyans to fight for Russia.
The report stated that Mr Omwamba, aside from sourcing for Kenyans to join the Russian military, also facilitated their accommodation pending travel to Moscow, and aided the recruits in opening bank accounts for payment of a signing bonus and salaries.
The signing bonus allegedly ranged between Sh910,000 and Sh1.2 million, and it attracted even military and police veterans.
But NIS and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) could be playing catch-up to the economics graduate, as it now emerges that Mr Omwamba left for Russia last year, amid attempts by authorities to prosecute him for the alleged jobs fraud and recruitment of Kenyans to the war frontline.
In an interview with the Nation on Tuesday, Mr Omwamba said that he has been working in Russia for months as a supervisor in a cleaning company.
Mr Omwamba said he will travel back to Nairobi in mid-March.
His planned return coincides with the mention of a High Court suit Mr Omwamba filed last year, seeking anticipatory bail, which would block authorities from arresting him in relation to the Russian military recruitment allegations.
The case will be mentioned at the Milimani High Court on March 26, with directions issued on how the matter shall proceed.
Inspocare Health Ltd and Universal Trends Medical and Diagnostic Centre, two facilities that allegedly conducted medical inspections for the syndicate, have also obtained court orders barring investigators and intelligence operatives from obtaining records of recruits that they examined.
Mr Omwamba says that his Global Face Human Resources Ltd secured civilian jobs in Russia for 28 Kenyans, and admits to a friendship with Mikhail Lyapin – the Russian national who was repatriated to Moscow last year over alleged involvement with the same recruitment syndicate.
The NIS report stated that Mr Lyapin, alias Sargevich, was part of Mr Omwamba’s network alongside Kenyans Edward Kamau Gituku and Joel Muchiri Ngugi alias Caleb.
Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Musalia Mudavadi.
Also Read:How Russian agents lure Kenyans to war
Mr Gituku and Mr Lyapin were arrested following a September 24, 2025, raid on apartments in Athi River, where 22 recruits were waiting to travel to join the Russian military.
“I met Mikhail (Lyapin) in 2023. He was introduced to me by an American. The three of us were friends, but I never did business with him (Lyapin). He would give me small jobs like importing for him a car, but we never worked together on recruitment,” Mr Omwamba said.
Bank accounts operated by Mr Gituku and Mr Omwamba were frozen last year as part of the investigations.
He, however, denies sending Kenyans to die on the frontline of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Omwamba claimed that several Kenyans enlisted with the Russian military of their own volition and without the help of recruitment agencies.
The recruits, he added, desert duty after receiving a signing bonus and run to Kenya’s embassy and claim that they were trafficked.
“People from across the world are going to Russia. We have (from Kenya) former police and military officers. You can opt to sign up for the military and they will give you a military ID, a salary and a signing bonus. Among the conditions is that they (military recruiters) record a video of you stating that you have joined the military willingly. What I know is that people go and enlist, get the signing bonus and send it home, and then run to the Embassy and claim that they were trafficked,” Mr Omwamba said in the interview.
Mr Omwamba, now one of the most wanted people in Kenya, claimed that he went to Russia to check up on the people he recruited for civilian jobs, and to look for work himself.
The NIS in its report tabled in the National Assembly, stated that Mr Omwamba’s Global Face Human Resources is a rogue, unlicensed agency which took advantage of the government’s Kazi Majuu initiative to run the military recruitment.
The report added that Mr Omwamba’s firm would log its victims for travel to Turkey or the UAE, after which they would re-route to Russia.
Multiple individuals have told police and intelligence officers that Global Face Human Resources lured them with well-paying jobs in various countries, only for them to get coerced into the military, with only two options given: fight or die.
Some of the victims, the NIS report further stated, were Kenyans already working in Qatar, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Jordan.
They were allegedly lured with the promise of better-paying work in Russia.
“Equally, some civilians working in Qatar, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Jordan, and Asian countries took the lucrative deal and travelled to Russia. The close to 1,000 Kenyans who are estimated to be in Russia did not all travel from Kenya. Some were already in the diaspora in the aforementioned countries and have since moved to fight in Russia,” the report reads in part.
Some Kenyans have been recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine.
“…Several victims have returned to Kenya, either maimed or having managed to escape from the war zone through the assistance of the Kenyan Embassy in Moscow. The majority of the recruited Kenyans indicated that they were made to sign contracts by the agency and an unnamed overseas employment support agency based in Moscow, Russia,” it further states.
On July 15, 2024, Mr Omwamba and his Aspect Group Holdings recorded a settlement with John Migwi Mwangi that would see the withdrawal of a case filed at the Nanyuki High Court.
It looked like a deal for all parties involved.
Mr Mwangi would pay Mr Omwamba and Aspect Group Holdings Sh15 million and settle a debt. In return, Mr Omwamba and Aspect Group Holdings would withdraw the suit they filed against Mr Migwi.
The judge would have one less case to worry about and dedicate precious judicial time to other matters, creating a backlog in Kenya’s justice system.
Under the settlement, Mr Omwamba and Aspect Group Holdings were free to attach Mr Mwangi’s bank accounts if the Sh15 million debt had not been settled by 5 pm on July 17, 2024.
On August 13, 2024, Mr Omwamba and his company were back in court, this time seeking to have Absa Bank CEO Abdi Mohamed jailed for contempt of court.
Mr Omwamba claimed in his application that Absa Bank had refused to abide by the court order allowing him and Aspect Group to attach Mr Mwangi’s bank accounts.
In an attempt to set the record straight and wriggle out of the potential fines and prison sentences that at times accompany contempt of court convictions, Absa Bank filed its response, blowing the lid off a fraud scheme.
Mr Mwangi, whose accounts were to be attached, had actually died on April 12, 2023 – more than a year before the dead man purportedly entered an out-of-court deal with Mr Omwamba.
As per the court record, this meant Aspect Group Holdings had either sued and settled out of court with a corpse, or was part of a fraud scheme looking to rob a dead man and using the courts as his getaway vehicle.
The High Court believed it was the latter and invited the DCI to look into the matter.
“On the material before court, it emerges that the institution of proceedings in High Court Civil Suit No. E003 of 2024 at Nanyuki is a matter that must attract the eye of The office of Director of Criminal Investigations as the same is filed on 15th July 2024 yet a death certificate marked MM-4 in the Replying affidavit sworn by Michael Massawa shows that the defendant, John Migwi Mwangi died on 12th April 2023. Thus the defendant would not have instructed anyone to file suit at the time this suit was filed,” the February 10, 2026, court ruling reads in part.
“With the result that the application herein fails and is dismissed with costs at the higher scale against the Applicant. The Estate of the deceased John Migwi Mwangi be at liberty to institute investigations through the DCI over the apparent fraud in the filing of this matter,” the court added.
Mr Omwamba denied filing the case, insisting that the company has been dormant since its incorporation on September 23, 2019. Mr Omwamba insists that he has no business in Nanyuki and has never travelled there.
Mr Omwamba admits that his motion to expel Ms Orwoba from UDA and remove her from the Senate was partially motivated by bile, as he alleges that the two had a dispute regarding the recruitment of individuals through his Global Face Human Resources.
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