Youthful, flashy and politically ambitious: Hard questions about mystery ‘millionaires’

Last week, Robert Momanyi appeared before Milimani Chief Magistrate Martha Mutuku to face charges of causing grievous harm.

He looked calm as he monitored the proceedings through a brown pair of sun glasses. With his three co-accused, they denied causing harm to Kevin Oduor in Nairobi’s Kilimani estate by mercilessly beating him up on Labour Day.

PUBLIC LIFE

With that turn of events, the public life of Mr Momanyi has come under focus. He is among the growing number of individuals who regularly post pictures of their lavish lifestyles, dominated by wads of cash and luxury cars.

These youthful, flashy and often politically ambitious men, mostly carrying licensed firearms and sometimes moving around with bodyguards, are also not shy to give media interviews on the millions of shillings they spend on luxury items and parties.

That they are also well-connected is not in doubt and even though their public profile is that they are “businessmen”, tracing the businesses they are involved in is never easy. So where does all the money come from?

A common thread is that most of them have had run-ins with the law, including ongoing fraud court cases involving fake gold and counterfeit money deals.

Here is a snapshot of the city’s 10 mystery money men.

Robert Momanyi

During the 2017 election campaigns in Nairobi’s Makadara Constituency, Momanyi sent tongues wagging with his well-oiled campaign that included a Land Cruiser which had a plate inscribed with his surname.

It was during the campaign season that he did a television interview where he discussed cars, watches and rings, among other items.

“You will see me in a (Land Cruiser) ZX, which is top-dollar. You will definitely see me in an S-Class (Mercedes). You will also see me in a Range Rover,” he told the interviewer when asked about the cars he owns.

When queried about the most expensive watch he has ever acquired, he mentioned a Rolex worth Sh600,000.

The budding politician, said to have influential friends in government, revealed that he owns a Sh500,000 suit and shoes worth Sh200,000.

DIAMONDS

He was also sure to mention that a ring on his left hand was made of diamonds and gold.

Momanyi’s Instagram page is an exhibit of life on the fast lane. It is all about expensive champagne, exclusive beaches, bespoke items, fine dining and glitzy cars.

Lifestyle was not able to reach Momanyi for an explanation on his source of wealth as his phone was switched off. However, a family member said he knows the young man as a businessman and people are just “jealous” about his success.

Steve Mbogo

Social networking site Instagram is best known for helping people flaunt what they have, and Steve Mbogo appears to have made a home there.

It is through Instagram that he lets the world know his taste for the fine things in life, and by extension how moneyed he is. If it is not a photo of him posing in designer clothes in his tastefully furnished office, it will be him next to a top-of-the-range vehicle or on a scenic destination abroad.

From what he posts online and the lifestyle he leads, Mbogo leaves no doubt that he is a man of means.

The notion was endorsed further during his campaigns ahead of the 2017 General Election where he launched an expensive campaign in his unsuccessful bid to represent Starehe Constituency in Nairobi. Artiste Charles “Jaguar” Njagua, another flashy politician, clinched the seat.

But where does Mbogo’s money come from? He has in the past said it streams in from his businesses that are in various industries including aviation, real estate, mining, and commodity trade. There have never been specifics on these.

BLASTED

However, he was once blasted for claiming to be on the board of aviation firm Fly540. After making that allegation in a TV interview, the airline denounced the claim.

Red-faced, Mbogo must have learnt a bitter lesson. Later on, when he did an interview with a local publication, he did not name any company he deals in, claiming that his partners did not want publicity.

“Usually, I’m silent, but one day my success will shake the whole world,” Mbogo wrote in a caption of a photo uploaded on Instagram in February, where he was smugly seated in a business class aeroplane seat.

His other outrageous claim has been that he will bring Formula One to Kenya, something that remains a dream.

Ken Wycliffe Lugwiri

Mr Ken Wycliffe Lugwiri, aka General DeFao, was last week arrested by Directorate of Criminal Investigation detectives over allegations of having counterfeit dollars.

In police statements, he says he is a businessman who deals in used cars. He also adds that he owns a security company.

Mr Lugwiri, who also uses the name “Lugwili”, had his first major collision with authorities 16 years ago when he was sentenced to nine years in jail on September 9, 2003, for trying to defraud various businessmen while impersonating Alfred Gitonga, who was at one time an aide of former president Mwai Kibaki.

His nine-year sentence, however, translated to three years behind bars because the sentences were to run concurrently.

FRAUD

A month later, he was sentenced to two years in prison for trying to defraud former Kenya Pipeline manager Ezekiel Komen of Sh20,000.

What crowned his activities in town is when he presented himself to the police to deny claims that his Mercedes Benz dumped the body of Mercy Keino on Waiyaki Way on the night of June 7, 2011, when the university student died under mysterious circumstances. He denied any wrongdoing, saying that he only saw the body on the road and swerved to avoid it.

According to his close associates, he got the nickname, General DeFao, from his love of Lingala music.

Don Bosco Gichana

Ahead of the 2007 General Election, a 26-year-old Don Bosco Gichana, a baby-faced man hailing from Kisii County, grabbed media headlines for buying ODM leader Raila Odinga a Hummer vehicle.

The car captured the imagination of Kenyans and soon found its way in political messaging during the heated campaign times, with Raila’s supporters using the symbol of the “hammer”. But after the subsequent 2013 General Election, where he unsuccessfully contested to be the Kitutu Chache South MP, Gichana was arrested in Tanzania after visiting a friend there.

He was locked up at Kisongo Prison for close to five years. In September 2018, he pleaded guilty to charges that included money laundering before a Tanzanian court. As a result, he was handed a five-year jail term and a fine of Sh13.7 million.

LEFT PRISON

A month later, on October 27, he left prison and was received by former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, among other leaders, in his Gusii home.

Before his arrest, Mr Gichana ran several entertainment spots in Nairobi, among them Capri Seven, which was located along Jabavu Road in Kilimani.

His financial muscle was felt when he contested for a parliamentary seat, which he lost to Richard Onyonka, in Kitutu Chache South.

To date, those who were involved in his campaigns have never shied away from bragging how well Gichana paid them for working for him.

Before joining politics, Gichana was the patron of Shabana Football Club.

WEALTH

In a phone interview with Lifestyle on Thursday, Gichana said he had a genuine source of income. He added that he is currently struggling because the businesses he was running had gone down when he was in the Tanzanian prison.

“The various businesses that I ran were the source of my wealth. When I came back, most had been disrupted and things are no longer the same,” he said.

He also noted that whenever a person is locked up in prison, it does not mean that they were necessarily wrong.

“People should stop the speculations and get their facts right. Many factors might see one end up in prison and it’s good for my supporters to know that many things were amiss in the case I was facing in Tanzania,” he said.

In November 2010, three years before his arrest in Tanzania, Gichana, alongside five other people, were charged in a Nairobi court over theft of more than Sh220 million from different financial institutions.

STOLE MONEY

The prosecution alleged that Gichana and his co-accused stole the money from Fina Bank through two other banks in Nairobi: Commercial Bank of Africa and two branches of Barclays Bank — in Westlands and in the central business district. He denied the charge.

Zaheer Jhanda

He provided endless fodder for gossip blogs with his relationship with city socialite Amber Ray, and he seemed to enjoy the attention he received from it.

Jhanda’s social media posts tell a story of a high-flyer. The headline photo on his Facebook account depicts him alighting from a chopper, while photos posted on the account show him in various locations in the US.

In the 2017 General Election, he was in the race to be Nyaribari Chache MP. He ran a well-oiled campaign but lost to Richard Tong’i. Earlier this year, queries arose over an apparent cosy relationship between Altana Corporation Limited, a company associated with Jhanda, and the National Land Commission.

On February 7, the Director of Public Prosecutions ordered an investigation into Sh788 million Standard Gauge Railway compensation that NLC was to give a religious organisation in Kajiado County. The religious organisation, Clarence Matheny Leadership Training Institute, was apparently supposed to surrender a share of that to Jhanda’s firm.

Jared Otieno

The date is August 22, 2015. The venue is an unassuming village in Meru County. The occasion is a dowry payment ceremony, and the man of the moment in Jared Otieno.

Otieno’s entourage is impressive. It includes helicopters and a fleet of sleek cars. He instantly becomes the talk of town.

Word spreads that at a pre-wedding ceremony held two months earlier, Otieno splashed millions of shillings for the party.

Fast-forward to June 22, 2017. The venue this time is the cold, soulless benches of the Milimani Law Courts.

Otieno is in the dock and the charges read against him say he obtained Sh22 million from two accusers who say he pretended to sell them gold.

The prosecution alleges he committed the offence on October 2015 and June 2017. He denied the charge.

Kevin Obia

“Instagrammable” is a word quickly entering the lingo among the tech-savvy; and it is used to describe a moment that deserves being snapped and shared on Instagram.

If what he has shared via his account is anything to go by, then Obia alias “The Don” must be living a very “instagrammable” life.

It comes in doses of latest cars with covetable interiors. Or enviable designer clothes that fit his tall frame to the millimetre. Or hangouts at venues others can only reach in their dreams. Or partying hard while hanging out with celebrities in plush Nairobi clubs, mostly in Kilimani. Last year, he launched A1 entertainment, a music label alongside celebrities like Shaffi Weru. A1 was involved in hosting American musician Rick Ross during his visit to Kenya last year.

While his Instagram moments tell a story of a tranquil life, in real life it is anything but that.

Run-ins with authorities are part of his life, a case in point being a March 16 gun incident in Kileleshwa where police say he pointed his weapon at a guard and threatened to kill him. Obia is also being tried for pretending that he could sell seven kilograms of gold to an Australian national.

Joseph Henry Waswa

The grandeur displayed by Jared Otieno in his pre-wedding event of 2015 could be matched and even overtaken, Henry Waswa reasoned.

And so, in December 2017, when he went to pay his dowry for his wife in Mwingi, Kitui County, there was not one, not two, but four helicopters transporting guests there.

Accompanying Mr Waswa to the event were MPs Charles Nguna (Mwingi West), Babu Owino (Embakasi East), Caleb Amisi (Saboti) and Alfred Keter (Nandi Hills).

PLANE TRIP

This is the same man who had, in July 2016, spent hundreds of thousands of shillings in securing bond and organising a plane trip for Saleh Wanjala, the man who dangled on a helicopter as it took off.

But in February, State prosecutors presented some not-so-rosy details about Mr Waswa in court.

He had been arrested for allegedly being part of a group that impersonated President Uhuru Kenyatta and conned a tycoon of millions of shillings while pretending to assist in buying land. He denied the charge.

Babu Owino

The Embakasi East MP has created the illusion of a man swimming in cash since his days as a student leader at the University of Nairobi.

In 2014, he claimed to have spent Sh4 million during his campaign to be elected as the student leader for a second time.

During his first stint as the chairman of the Students Organisation of Nairobi University (Sonu), he would create a buzz in the university by the cars he drove, among then a Hyundai Tuscani sports car. He also claimed to own a BMW car and a Range Rover.

COMPANIES

In a 2012 interview with the Nation, he said he is a businessman but when asked to be more specific, the sharp-tongued politician responded that he is a “none of your businessman”.

This is a man who has been photographed with wads of cash and filmed distributing cash to students in a queue.

So, where does his cash really come from? Asked that question during a prime time TV interview in 2016, he cited God.

“I am not a wealthy person. Personally, my wealth comes from heaven. What I have to say is that I own a group of companies and I’m a farmer also. If you need to know, I will explain at a later time,” he said.

Stephen Mark Oduk

When sleuths attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations arrested a gang with fake dollars last week, one of them shocked officers when he totally failed to provide an identity card and only told the officers that his name was Stephen Mark.

In the charge sheet presented at the Milimani Law Courts on Monday, the name “Oduk” was added to those he had provided.

It remains unclear why he failed to hand over either his ID card or a waiting card to prove that he had applied for a new card.

According to the Kenya law, one is supposed to apply for a waiting card as soon as their ID card gets lost, but he did not apply for it. Some sources told Lifestyle of another name: “Lucas Mbadi”.

Court documents reveal that the person identified as Stephen (Steve) Mark is not new to the court corridors. An example is on October 15, 2013, a person identified as Stephen Mark Oduk, dressed in police uniform, was part of a gang in Nairobi that kidnapped two children of Indian origin: Ahwal Kaul Mahjan and Abhita Kaur Mahjan. He was in a group of other five men who included a police officer who had been interdicted from the service for being part of a gang that stole millions from an ATM machine in Nairobi.

ARRESTED
The group then demanded that the family that runs a chain of hotels in East Africa gives them Sh86 million in order for the duo to be released. They were later arrested in Matasia, Ngong, where they were hiding the girls and arraigned in court over the kidnap incident.

Even before he made news after being arrested over fake dollars, the man has not shied away from showing off his wealth and has been featured in entertainment sites as among Nairobi’s most flamboyant and wealthy. He even had a corner permanently reserved for him at a Kilimani restaurant. And in September 2016 he held a lavish party for his fiancé in a high-end club where he told the media that he had spent Sh2.5 million for the event.