Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) went after 21-year-old student Felesta Nyamathira Njoroge after a sum of Ksh102,654,024 was discovered in her Co-operative bank account.
Felesta, who is a student at Nairobi Technical Training Institute, left detectives puzzled after the huge sum of money was discovered in her bank account.
The mystery of the large sum led detectives on Felesta’s tracks. It was established that she is the sole signatory and beneficial owner of the Co-operative bank account in question.
The large sum was deposited in 4 transactions, in a span of just 3 days (August 4th to August 6th, 2021). The bank account was brand new, having just been opened just days before the huge transactions.
Assets Recovery Agency summoned Felesta on October 18th to explain the suspicious transactions, but she failed to show up.
The 21-year-old sent her lawyers who said that the summons were vague, and asked detectives to furnish them with proper particulars of the alleged offence she had committed.
Two days later, Felesta’s defense informed Assets Recovery Agency that their client had traveled out of the country.
“We would like to inform you that our client, Felesta, is currently not in Kenya and in fact left the country on October 2nd, 2021. We do not have information on when our client will be coming back to Kenya,” the letter from Felesta’s defense read.
Detectives suspect that Felesta may be part of a money laundering syndicate involving foreigners.
Assets Recovery Agency successfully petitioned court to grant them orders to freeze Felesta’s Co-operative bank account which has Ksh102 million.
In her defense, Felesta explained that the millions in her bank account was deposited by her millionaire Belgian boyfriend De Mesel Marc.
Court has now issued an ultimatum on the number of days in which the Asset Recovery Agency will be allowed to keep Felesta’s millions.
Court called upon Asset Recovery Agency to hasten their investigation for a limited amount of time.
The judge said detectives aren’t going to hold the money for a month as it had been stated, meaning that if Felesta is cleared of the charges she is accused of she will be able to access her millions in less than a month’s time.
