Last week, news broke that a Nairobi student was under investigation from the Asset Recovery Agency after a large sum of money was discovered in her bank account.
21 year old Felesta Nyamathira Njoroge came in the spotlight after Sh102,654,024 was discovered in her Co-operative Bank account. The large sum was deposited in her brand new account in a series of 4 transactions, in a span of just 3 days (August 4 to August 6, 2021).
On August 4, a sum of Sh25,803,756 was deposited. The following day, Sh26,028,156 and Sh25,242,756 were deposited in two separate transactions.
On August 6, a further Sh25,579,356 was deposited.
“Preliminary investigations have established the respondent opened the suspect account for the sole purpose of receiving the said funds which she declared the source to be from “my boyfriend” and the purpose as investing in land projects and safaris,” the affidavit by the assets agency read.
It has since emerged that the money was a gift from her Belgian boyfriend Marc De Mesel, who as it turns out, is a cryptocurrency dollar millionaire.
Through her lawyers, Felesta says that the money was to be spent on development projects. “The monies were for investing in land projects and safaris,” her lawyers told ARA, two days after the agency moved to freeze her accounts.
Days later, it emerged that the girl had left Kenya, ostensibly to re-unite with her boyfriend in Europe. “We would like to inform you that our client, Felista, is currently not in Kenya and in fact left the country on October 2. “We do not have information on when our client will be coming back to Kenya,” the law firm stated.
Mesel has expressed optimism that the matter will be solved quickly, but said that they don’t feel safe anymore in Kenya.
“As investors with every exchange and every bank, you need to do this constantly and there is a trace on where the money is coming from. It’s from my investments and my brokerage,” the bitcoin investor stated.
“I knew there were more unlawful activities in Africa than Europe but without any notice, summon or question by police, suddenly being apprehended in my home, seizing my laptop, phone and passport, taken away handcuffed, as well as my pregnant girlfriend, I did not expect. Turns out we were believed to be part of a money-laundering scheme due to a bank gift I had made to my girlfriend, and for which we had submitted the requested paperwork to the bank. We are not feeling safe anymore in Kenya.”
In a YouTube video posted 2 months ago, Marc explained how cops raided his home and arrested both him and his girlfriend. They questioned him for hours on his source of funds, accusing him of money laundering and even terrorist financing. KRA also got involved with a huge tax bill.
