Woman arrested for defrauding a foreigner Sh300M in a fake gold scam
Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) yesterday arrested a wanted suspect who defrauded a foreigner off Sh300 Million in a fake gold scam.
Pauline Adhiambo Odok alias Rose Omamo, who has reportedly been on the run since May last year, was apprehended at Ololua, Dam Estate.
According to detectives, the suspect has been masquerading as a relative to a senior government official, ostensibly to earn the trust of her would be victims.
She is said to have convinced Southorn Chanthavong, a director of Simong Group Company based in Lao, that she was in a position to sell him gold.
Pauline allegedly, together with other accomplices who have since been charged, lured Chanthavong to an office in Kaputei gardens, Kileleshwa, where they showed him genuine gold bars in heavy metal boxes and immediately struck a deal.
DCI stated that a flurry of meetings took place between May 8, 2019 to May 25, 2019 – a few more meetings took place during which the victim paid Ksh.300 million for the consignment of gold on the promise that it would be delivered to his home country in Lao.
“It is after he had parted with the money being payment for the consignment that things started going south. Chanthavong, who had been told to wait for his shipment in Lao, a top rice producing country in Southeast Asia, realized that he had been conned after being taken on a wild goose chase for weeks, when the shipment failed to arrive,” read the DCI statement.
“Luckily, a few days ago, a concerned member of the public who had seen our appeal for the arrest of Pauline, spotted her and alerted our detectives on her whereabouts.”
The suspect is currently in the DCI custody awaiting arraignment, to answer to charges of Conspiracy to Defraud.
