Police arrested six suspects they said are linked to a series of alteration and fraud of land documents in an operation in Ngara area, Nairobi.
The team drawn from the Directorate of criminal investigations (DCI) and led by the officer commanding land fraud investigations unit Wilheim Kimutai staged the operation following reports the group was making the fake documents.
During the arrest one of the suspects swallowed his memory card so as to conceal evidence.
Another suspect ran away from the scene while delivering title for printing while leaving his documents and phone at the scene.
Police said the suspects are part of a land cartel involved in defrauding Kenyans of their genuine parcels through changing ownership in both the physical files and the digital platform using fake documents.
Those who were arrested during the operation were Benedict Mwangangi Ngala, Joel Kakuli Mwangangi, Sylvester Mwanzia Mwanthi, Erick Omondi Ojwang, Titus Wambua Kithuku and Vincent Boaz Owang.
According to Kimutai the six were found printing fake land documents in their office at Anpemu House within Ngara area.
“One of the suspects receives instructions from different clients among them rogue brokers and rogue ministry of land officials who direct him to print fake documents and append signatures and stamps of ministry officials without their knowledge,” said Kimutai.
Among the items confiscated in the Ngara office included four mobile phones,two type writers, four printers, scanners,eleven incomplete certificate of titles and fifteen deed plans.
Also seized during the operation were two survey plans, a CPU, about 1000 unprinted title deed papers, 17 letters of allotments, assorted computation files, one logbook,one smart Driving licence and about 100 different date codes.
Kimutai said a search was also conducted at the residence of one of the suspects and several items were confiscated which included four stamps belonging to the ministry of lands officials,registry index maps for Nairobi block 118 land, 11 allotment letters, several land administration leases and nine deed plans.
Their modus operandi according to Kimutai is that the brokers first source for fraudulent jobs from different clients for ingestion into the manual and digital registries at the Ministry of Lands.
The most targeted parcels include prime undeveloped parcels, those owned by foreigners, the elderly and the deceased.
Once the brokers have the targeted parcels at hand, they then engage Benedict to prepare and print fake land documents.
Thereafter the brokers engage some rogue ministry staff to insert the fake documents into the physical files and once that is done they upload the fake documents into the ardhi sasa platform.
While this process is ongoing, the brokers have already identified a buyer and once the fake documents are uploaded to the ardhi sasa platform, the buyer can conduct a search and by then ownership will have changed.
In cases where the parcel is not for immediate sale, the brokers transfer the parcels to themselves using proxy individuals or proxy companies.
The brokers are well known within the Ministry of lands with one of them fond of name dropping as a way of commanding respect within the ministry.
The six suspects are being held in three different stations including Gigiri, Parklands and Muthaiga police stations awaiting presentation in court on Monday, police said.
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