Land fraudsters let loose to fleece Kenyans

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.

This led to him being awarded damages amounting to Sh7.84 million. The award was given although a woman by the name Ms Wamuyu was registered through the registrar of companies as the director.

A Nyeri-based lobby group, Social Watch, also known as Futa Magendo Action Network, has so far received many complaints involving numerous dubious land transactions.

Police involvement

The organisation says police in some ways complicate investigations. Mr James Mugo, the organisationfs executive director says in some instances the criminal cartels compromise the police. Some of the people who are often sold these kind of lands are most of the times senior or wealthy personalities who are able to manipulate investigations.

Mugo says his investigation has established that the same cartels are currently targeting land whose owners have passed away.

"They identify the lands they want after which they register succession matters in court. They successfully acquire the parcels and the Lands ministry awards them title deeds after which they hurriedly sub-divide the land into smaller plots before selling to unsuspecting buyers," says Mugo.

Mugo says he has noted a worrying trend where the fraudsters have been forging signatures of already dead former land registrars to make transactions.

"Land registrars known to be dead and already buried are resurrecting and signing legal government documents," reads one of the complaint letters sent by Mugo to Mr Ndegwa Muhoro, the Director of Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

In other cases, some parcels belonging to deceased persons and which have already been placed under the Public Trustee have been illegally delivered to the hands of these fraudsters.

The fraudsters later subdivide and sell the land to unsuspecting members of the public who risk losing the parcels and the cash they paid.

In one of the cases, two orphans in Nyeri are at a loss over the next course of action after their land, which was under the Public Trustee, was allegedly illegally acquired and sold.

The two have already been evicted from their land, effectively denying them their only inheritance from their parents.

In another case, some people registered a company with one of the directors being listed as Ms Elizabeth Gitiri Muruatetu, the wife of former Lands Commissioner, Mr Wilson Gachanja.

The company wanted a share of a land which was also being claimed by a Nairobi-based women group, which has a membership of over 300.

The womenfs group had earlier on acquired the four hectares piece of land situated in Mavoko Municipality.

Documents made available to The Underworld show that three women were granted the land on behalf of the women group under the registration of Titles Act, Chapter 281.

They were to pay an annual rent of Sh120,000. The lease period was 99 years, starting from October 1, 1998.

Investigations indicated that a senior lands officer was involved in allowing the alleged sharing of the parcel.

In a response letter drawn by the Ministry of Lands to the Public Complaints Standing Committee on August 28, 2009, the ministry concurred that investigations into the involved officer, who cannot be mentioned for legal reasons, were ongoing.

"The issue of allocation of the land in question has been the subject of investigation by this ministry for some time now, which are yet to be concluded and a decision made. There are other serious issues affecting the claimants that border on forgery and unauthorised land allocation," reads the letter in part.

Unless the Ministry of Lands works with police to investigate these fraudsters, many more Kenyans are likely to lose their land as many more lose their money buying non-existent land.