Gold scammers haven: How underground syndicate lures foreigners with forged licences and fake vaults

The deal proposed was the purchase of 150 kilogrammes of gold, with an initial transaction of 50 kilogrammes. [Courtesy]

When US commodities trader Dave White landed in Nairobi in early December 2025, he believed he was stepping into a legitimate gold deal that would open doors to mineral trade in the country.

Instead, within weeks, he would find himself entangled in what detectives now describe as a carefully choreographed fraud that cost him Sh37 million and exposed an underground network of alleged repeat gold scammers operating from a high-end apartment in Kilimani.

Court documents filed by the DCI detail how Dave White Odell was lured to Kenya through online communication by a man identified as Paul Chogo.

Chogo, it is claimed, introduced himself as an independent gold seller acting on behalf of community miners and promised access to non-manufactured precious metals.

White, the sole director of Odell Gold and Commodities Trading and Investment Company registered in Dubai’s Maydan Free Zone, told The Standard that the proposal fitted within his company’s global trading portfolio, which includes coffee, cocoa and metals.

He arrived in Nairobi on December 3, 2025. The following day, he met Chogo at Sarit Centre Mall, where discussions around pricing, quantities and logistics were finalised.

The deal proposed was the purchase of 150 kilogrammes of gold, with an initial transaction of 50 kilogrammes. White was required to pay 2.5 per cent of the purchase price, which was $75,000 per kilogramme, to cover shipping, insurance and smelting costs.

To secure the arrangement, White was issued with an invoice by Lantain Limited Company for $93,750, described as part of a collateral management agreement.

The money was wired in two tranches from White’s Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank accounts to an account held by Okoth and Company Advocates at Family Bank in Nairobi.

The funds were later withdrawn in cash. As part of the supposed security for the transaction, White was taken to Sky Eagle Ultra Vault Limited, a private safe deposit facility operating from an apartment building in Kilimani known as Oasis Maralal, located on the fourth floor, room 407.

Investigators said the apartment had been rented in the name of Sky Eagle Ultra Vault Limited, a company registered by Patrick Mbugua Ng’ang’a.

However, detectives later established that the phone numbers submitted during tenancy registration did not belong to Ng’ang’a but to Kevin Onyango Otieno, also known as Sonko, and another individual identified as Solomon Mwandanda.

Further, the signature used on the lease agreement differed from that on Ng’ang’a’s national identity card.

Inside the apartment were multiple safes, one of which was sublet to White. According to White, he deposited 1.35 kilogrammes of gold as collateral on December 12, 2025, before later adding four more kilogrammes, bringing the total to 5.35 kilogrammes.

Mutual control

The arrangement, he said, was designed to ensure mutual control.

“I was given one key and Paul Chogo had the other. I set two combinations, looked away, and he set his two. No one was supposed to access it without the other,” White said. Days later, however, when White returned to the vault, the safe would not open using the agreed combinations.

He protested when Chogo and the vault manager suggested overwriting the codes.

Though reassured that he could reset the combinations himself, White said the incident raised serious concerns.

Red flags multiplied when shipping arrangements repeatedly changed.

White said he was first told the gold would be shipped as regular cargo, then informed that a private jet was required at an additional cost not covered in the agreement. That was when he demanded a refund.

Instead, White said the suspects began proposing irregular shipment routes, including exporting the gold under different names. He declined. Matters worsened when he was told the gold had been moved to Uganda.

“He sent me a video saying he was flying to Uganda and that the consignment was already there,” White said.

White travelled to Uganda with Chogo, only to be told they had arrived late and that customs offices were closed. He said he was abandoned and left to find his own way back. On January 8, White reported the matter at Central Police Station in Nairobi, prompting a DCI investigation.

On Wednesday, detectives raided the apartment, describing it as the nerve centre of the scam.

When the DCI raided the safes on Wednesday, they recovered five metal bars believed to be the alleged gold collateral in the safe box that had been sublet to White. The bars were submitted to the Ministry of Mining for analysis.

They identified at least five safes of interest and obtained court orders on Thursday from the Milimani Chief Magistrate’s Court to search them.

The results revealed that the metal was brass, not gold.

White said the gold he initially deposited was genuine, raising troubling questions about when and by whom the substitution occurred.

The DCI has named several persons of interest in the case, including Kevin Otieno alias Sonko, Paul Chogo, Collins Ochieng Opande, Patrick Mbugua Ng’ang’a, Lantain Limited Company, Sky Eagle Ultra Vault Limited and advocate Jacob Auma Okoth.

According to investigators, some of the suspects are repeat offenders.

In February 2024, Kelvin Otieno Onyango, believed to be the same Kevin Otieno alias Sonko, was arraigned in court after OSU detectives raided his office at China Wu-Yi Plaza in Kilimani.

Officers recovered forged mining licences, company seals and stamps purportedly issued by the Ministry of Mining.

He was charged with ten counts of forgery and making documents without authority, pleaded not guilty and was released on a Sh300,000 bond.

Last August, Onyango was again arrested in relation to a gold deal gone sour after a Canadian national was scammed Sh79 million in a 250-kilogramme gold transaction that never materialised.

“When we went to where it was alleged that the gold was selected, the operation was highly professional. Phones were confiscated. Armed guards were present. Everything looked legitimate,” said White.

The suspects are under investigation for obtaining money by false pretences, contrary to Section 313 of the Penal Code.