Flashy pastor, a Sh600m jobs scam and debt-stricken victim

Pastor James Wanjohi easily stands out and attracts attention wherever he goes. He dresses in expensive apparel and drives a black top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon. He loves the finer things in life and isn’t shy to show it all off.

A pastor at the Jesus Culture Ministries in Roysambu, Nairobi, he proudly professes his grass to grace story to inspire his congregation. 

That personal story chronicles his formative days while a student at Kanunga High School where, he claims, he paid his school fees with profits from selling avocados to fellow students.

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He then transitioned to an entrepreneur, printing marketing T-shirts for a popular church in Nairobi, he says. His story, he preaches, should encourage those going through hard times that they, too, can triumph.

The Nation obtained Pastor Wanjohi’s self-gratification motivational talks that he disseminates through YouTube interviews and on paid-up vernacular radio stations often late into the night.

So when he ventured into a mission that he marketed as offering overseas job opportunities, thousands of job seekers believed in his enterprise and most took out loans to pay the upfront fees. 

More than 4,000 jobseekers each paid fees ranging between Sh100,000 and Sh140,000 to Pastor Wanjohi’s WorthStart Africa based in Nairobi’s Pension Tower ostensibly for the jobs in Canada, United Kingdom, USA and Australia.

But the dream employment opportunity has turned into a nightmare for the job seekers who are now desperate to get their money back.

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A criminal investigation is also underway to determine how the victims were conned out of Sh600 million in the fake foreign job placement racket.

According to Nairobi Regional Criminal Investigations Officer Peter Njeru, Pastor Wanjohi is a wanted man after his company, WorthStart Africa, obtained money from job seekers in the guise of getting them overseas jobs.

Mr Njeru confirmed that most of the directors and senior staff of WorthStart have already been arrested and are in custody.

“My team raided his office last week at Pension Towers in Nairobi after much documented evidence of how he had swindled millions of unemployed Kenyans with fake jobs. We have arrested his accomplices,” Mr Njeru said, referring to five senior officials of the firm. “We are also looking for Mr Wanjohi who is the founder and mastermind of the whole racket. Wherever he is let him know he is a wanted man and he should surrender himself to Nairobi Area Police,’’ Mr Njeru told the Nation.

Pastor Wanjohi has since deactivated most of his active social media pages and deleted all photos.

The Nation started investigating Worthstart Africa last year in April after job seekers reached out claiming they had been defrauded. But all those who had initially sought help cancelled the interviews at the last-minute, claiming the pastor had reached out promising to refund the money. No refunds have, however, been forthcoming and the issue has since snowballed into a huge scandal.

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Ms Eleneta Njeri came to know of WorthStart Africa through spirited advertisements on radio and television. She travelled from Murang’a to Nairobi. She had nothing to doubt because the promoters of the enterprise linked it to the man of God and his church, Jesus Culture Ministries.

In Nairobi, she was promised a caregiver job in Canada , free housing and a work permit if she could part with a down payment of Sh125,000.

She paid the fee in June 2023 after taking a loan of Sh170,000 from a micro-lender. Workstart Africa had promised her that, by August last year, she would be flying to Toronto for a job placement. Excited, she even went ahead to dispose of some of her household items believing she had made a breakthrough only to learn that she had been scammed. 

She lost Sh125,000 and more bad news awaited her after the Canadian embassy slapped her with a five-year ban after it emerged that WorthStart Africa used fake financial documents to support her financial status to get a Canadian Visa.

“This (the ban) has shattered my dreams of working in Canada. I was informed by the embassy that I have been banned for five years for using fake financial statements to secure a visa. Under the agreement we had with WorthStart Africa, we were paying them directly and the money was to handle both the job placement and visa,’’ Ms Njeri told the Nation in an interview on Friday.

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Ms Lydiah Wangechi, 37, lost Sh120,000 to Worth Start Africa on June 27, last year .

She was promised a job in Canada as a hotelier, with free accommodation, a work permit and a legal officer to take her through the documentation once she landed there.

She said she learnt about the openings through radio and television adverts. She told the Nation that she is now servicing loans while those who scammed her are roaming free.

“I was looking forward to starting a new life after failing to get a sustainable job here in Kenya. I have been left vulnerable and I don’t know where to start again because the agency that conned us has severally told me that they don’t have a refund policy,” a dejected Ms Wangechi said.

Ms Shebach Muriithi also lost Sh100,000 chasing a casual job in Canada that never was .She told the Nation that efforts to recover the money have been futile and she has now realised that it was a scam all along

“I was swindled through fake jobs that were pushed by media and influencers. I have learnt the hard way not to believe everything on mainstream media and social media. I am really devastated and I leave it to God to deal with the owners of WorthStart Africa who have taken advantage of many jobless Kenyans,” Ms Muriithi said.

Ms Grace Kimani also lost 120,000 and has been seeking an elusive refund.

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“My prayer to WorthStart is to give me back my money. It has turned out that the documentation they did for us with embassies was intentionally shoddy and manipulated so that we could be rejected. Clearly, there were no jobs as promised,” she said.

Mr Kennedy Mbugua also lost Sh140,000 that he paid on September 30, 2023.

Detectives investigating WorthStart Africa and its affiliate companies told the Nation over the weekend that the company tricked its vulnerable clients through three ways.

One was advertising in the mainstream media and social media of job openings in Europe. When one visited their offices, they were required to pay between Sh100,000 toSh140,000 and promised caregiver and hotelier jobs abroad.

One was not issued with a job contract, rather, a visa facilitation contract. Canadian visas range between Sh15,000 to Sh20,000.

The second strategy was intentional poor documentation and cooked financial statements during visa application on behalf of job seekers, which saw mass rejection and candidates issued with five-year visa bans.

The third strategy was having different company names under WorthStart Africa, among them WorthStart Travel Agency and WorthStart Barista Technical Institute where applicants would later be taken round in circles under the guise that their contracts were erroneous and fell under the wrong company category.

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Ms Edith Okoki, who is the Director General at the National Employment Authority, a government agency that accredits employment agencies in Kenya, told the Nation that WorthStart Africa and WorthStart Travel Agency are not accredited by the government to recruit or transact any such business.

“There is no agency registered by the National Employment Authority bearing these names. In future, Kenyans should check for legitimate agencies on the National Employment Authority Integrated Management System,” Ms Okoki said, warning Kenyans against falling prey to rogue agencies.

On Saturday, Pastor Wanjohi called the Nation seeking to have the story put on hold and promising to cool the temperatures.

The flashy pastor said he is an investor at WorkStart Africa and maintained his company only deals with visa facilitation, not job placement.

“I agree that I am an investor at WorthStart Africa, but we only deal with visa facilitation, not job placements. But take it from me what is happening is malice from my competitors in the industry to bring me down,” Mr Wanjohi alleged.

However, he could not explain the numerous paid-up advertisements on television and radio pushed by influencers where his company advertises for job placements abroad.

“Like I have told you we only deal with visa placements and not job placements,” he responded.

Pastor Wanjohi is also a director at Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Investment and a politician who has previously expressed interest in Kabete and Roysambu constituency seats.

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