By Tajeu Shadrack Nkapapa
Three government officials including the Deputy Chief of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, John Kyovi Mutua were arraigned at Kibera court for forgery and conspiracy to commit a felony.
The trio face accusations from an elaborate scheme to forge diplomatic documents and defraud the U.S visa system.
Since March 2023, the U.S. Embassy in Kenya has cooperated with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) inquiry into the origins of several falsified diplomatic notes that emanated from the Ministry of Foreign and Diplomatic Affairs, which were signed and released by the said Deputy Chief of Protocol, Mr John Kyovi Mutua.
According to the detectives, the documents requesting entry visas to the United States for 19 officials comprising 4 from the Central Bank of Kenya, 10 from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 5 from the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, Public Works, Housing, and Urban Development were submitted to the U.S. Embassy Consular Section in Nairobi as official documents by Mr. Elvis Bikundo, a clerk at the Immigration Protocol Office.
After due diligence, the Embassy discovered that certain individuals referenced were not legitimate employees of the Government of Kenya, prompting an invitation to the DCI for a detailed investigation.
The subsequent inquiry revealed that the two officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kyovi and Bikundo, were supported by a civilian accomplice in a scheme that yielded profits amounting to tens of millions of shillings.
“In the elaborate scheme, only six (6) out of the 19 individuals listed for consideration for U.S. visas and subsequent travel to Washington DC, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, were legitimate employees of the GoK. The other 13 were the suspects’ means to living large, each channeling up to Sh600,000 to the bank account of the third suspect (Gared Keburi),” stated the DCI.
“Having verified the documents with the Forensic Document Examination Department and confiscating the passports in question, the investigators preferred appropriate charges which were agreeable to the ODPP in its independent review of the facts and evidence in support,” the DCI added.
The three suspects were granted a cash bail of Ksh. 50,000 each awaiting their trial.