Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) have cracked open an elaborate plan by a woman to extort money from her own family.
Jane Wairimu Ndung’u eloped with her secret lover and faked a kidnapping in which her supposed abductors were demanding Sh200,000 ransom.
Ms Wairimu “went missing” last Friday, September 17; later that night she called her husband Brian Mutuku claiming to have been kidnapped by unknown people.
Wairimu claimed she was abducted while walking along Loita street, in Nairobi’s central business district.
Worried, her husband Mr Mutuku filed a missing person’s report at DCI Embakasi.
As investigations were ongoing, Wairimu’s family and the husband raised Sh17,000 and sent it to the alleged kidnappers.
“Unbeknownst to them, Wairimu had eloped with a cab driver to his one-roomed abode in Malaa(Machakos County), where they were enjoying soft life unperturbed, after withdrawing the sent amount,” the DCI reported.
As days went by, the family formed a WhatsApp group to make contributions towards her release.
A further Sh40,000 was sent on Monday, which enabled the eloping lovers to travel from Malaa to Mtito-a-Ndei to withdraw the said money in a bid to distract detectives.
“As the detectives from Special Service Unit and Crime Research & Intelligence Bureau were about to pounce on the duo, there was a sudden turn of events. The alleged kidnapper Richard Mogire had promised his 21-year-old girlfriend a student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology that he would take her out over the weekend.
“The girlfriend kept calling and sending him messages asking him why he had stood her up. Mogire tried to explain that he would make it up to her this coming weekend but she would hear none of it and demanded that he picks her up, lest she leaves him,” narrated the DCI.
Mogire, a cab driver, obliged, changed the vehicle he was using to avoid detection and picked his girlfriend from the Juja based university.
They went to the one-roomed house where Mogire had stayed with Wairimu since her faked disappearance.
Detectives later established that the three had stayed together in the one-roomed abode since Monday, until Wednesday afternoon when they were arrested in Sagana.
“How Mogire convinced his campus girl to hang on and play ball yet she wasn’t part of the initial plan, still remains a puzzle. Wairimu explained that she had forced her disappearance to get away from creditors, who were on her neck since she lost her job,” the DCI added.
The three were detained at Embakasi police station, awaiting arraignment in court.
