By JOB WERU
Owners of idle pieces of land have been put on notice. Fraudsters are on the loose and moving into every part of the country searching for land to sell.
So far, hundreds of dubious land transfers have been reported where unsuspecting members of the public and the Government have lost billions of shillings to these unscrupulous land dealers.
The criminals are not only fleecing the poor, middle-class or lowly Kenyans, but have gone further to target prominent personalities and politicians.
Senior politicians and government ministers have not been spared by these fraudsters.
Indeed, President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga have also been victims. Their cases are still in court as they pursue justice.
Haco Tiger Company Managing Director Mr Polycarp Igathe escaped such a dubious deal two months ago. But this was not before he allegedly lost a down payment of Sh800,000. The suspected fraudulent land transaction was discovered before he could part with the whole purchase price.
These illegal land deals involve corrupt officials in the Ministry of Lands, the police, the Judiciary, lawyers and the criminal cartels. The involvement of these departments makes it hard for the land buyers to suspect any con-game.
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Judicial involvement
In most of the cases, the Judiciary has, either knowingly or unknowingly, awarded the fraudsters land in land succession matters that have been clandestinely filed by the criminals in courts.
For instance, in one of the matters touching on a parcel of land in Kitale owned by a company, a man contracted a law firm and allegedly falsely claimed that he was a director with the farm.
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