Conmen cash in on public thirst for quick money

By Joe Kiarie

In their quest to get rich overnight, Kenyans are losing up to Sh70 million to conmen along the streets of Nairobi every year.

Preying on the public’s desire to strike millions through lotteries, swindlers have swarmed the city with tempting offers.

The temptation is made even harder to resist by various lotteries local companies are offering.

And the Kenya Charity Sweepstake (KCS) says this will continue until the day the public will appreciate hard work rather than miracles pays.

The organisation says it is bemused by the simple pattern the conmen use to swindle unsuspecting people of hard-earned cash and valuable property every day.

Going for the prey

It all starts with you being accosted by a ‘naÔve’ looking young man, commonly going by the name Njeru. He looks battered and lost in the big city because ‘it is his first time in Nairobi and Tea Room along Accra Road — matatu stage — is the only place he knows. Njeru claims he is a miraa farmer from Meru. And true to his preferred name, Njeru speaks in a deep Meru accent.

When you give him half attention, he describes how he won a Kenya Charity Sweepstake ticket worth Sh400,000, which he readily displays. But he claims he has forgotten his national identification card at home, yet one must have the document to claim the prize.

Njeru then uneasily tells you he has to travel back to Meru the same day but has no bus fare. He says you give him Sh50,000 as security and claim the prize on his behalf, all on condition that you will only take Sh200,000 and give him the rest.

You buy Njeru’s ticket and proceed to KCS headquarters with your heart pounding and your mind already building castles in the air.

But your dream of instant riches is rudely cut short when you are informed the ticket is fake. By then, Njeru has vanished.

Happy with his feat, Njeru moves to another street and starts the same story. He has rehearsed the script so well and narrates his woes in the same tone and order.

By the end of the day, Njeru has swindled more than 10 people without breaking a sweat.

Hot spots

When The Standard on Sunday visited the KCS headquarters on Mama Ngina Street on Tuesday last week, we found four forged tickets on a table and forlorn looking ‘would-have-been millionaires’.

One victim was tricked outside the Ambassadeur Hotel. The other on Parliament Road, the other at the Country Bus Station, and the last one on Race Course Road in Nairobi.

At noon the next day, we found a young man who had been conned Sh50,000 on the same day in Thika. He gave out the cash to a teenager in exchange for a forged KCS ticket worth Sh2 million. The teenager claimed to have bought the ticket in Matuu town.

Mr Peter Njoroge, the head of sales and marketing at KCS, says five people come to claim prizes with fake tickets daily. Most of them are middle-income earners. "Monday is the worst day as we receive about 10 to 15 people who have been conned over the weekend. The average amount of money handed out as security ranges from Sh100 to Sh200,000. But most people part with Sh40,000," he says.

Those without money give valuable assets such as mobile phones and laptops.

Njoroge says despite massive sensitisation campaigns, people are still being duped. The cases have risen steadily for the last six years.

Convincing lie

"The victims come here confidently knowing they have won and say they bought the ticket in Meru. Some even insist they bought and scratched the ticket themselves," he says.

Only last month, KCS dealt with a case of a businessman from Thika who had fallen prey to the conmen and parted with Sh200,000 so he could cash a ticket worth Sh2 million.

In January an engineer with Tana Water Services Board in Nyeri lost Sh70,000 to swindlers who gave him a forged ticket of Sh2 million.