In the movie “The Good liar”, Roy Courtenay, a British con artist who lives large and has it all, alongside his friend Vincent, uses false identities to deceive people into giving him access to their finances.
He makes money from Ms Betty McLeish just a year after she lost her husband. In the end Roy is fought, becomes paralysed and dies.
Just like in the movie, Frank Obegi, Elijah Omeka, Fred Obare and Moses Nyachae — who mysteriously disappeared before their bodies were found in Kijabe Forest and Magadi — led a lavish lifestyle but everything about their riches was questionable.
When the bodies of Obegi, Omeka and Nyachae were found in Kijabe Forest, Mr Adamson Furaha, the police boss in Lari, said that they were in bad shape, having been badly mutilated.
“One of them had been partially eaten by wild animals. Their private parts had been cut off and it seems they died through strangulation. They had no identification documents and were naked,” he said.
Always in the house
Obare who lived in Sunton area, Kasarani, is well known in entertainment spots in the area.
To neighbours, he was the guy who did academic writing. This is also what his parents say.
“He was always in the house and rarely came out. At times he would come in top-of-the-range cars. We are also shocked that his life could end in such a manner,” said a neighbour.
It has emerged that Obare was arrested last year after he conned a man of his money through cryptocurrency deals. He was taken to Kasarani Police station and later picked up by detectives attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) at Ruiru police station.
“When he was brought here (Ruiru Police Station) both parties agreed to solve the matter out of court and we decided to let it go,” a detective privy to the matter said.
Finished paying debt
A family source Tuesday evening told the Nation that Obare finished paying the debt in May 2021, and made peace with the complainant.
Obare was last seen on Thursday, June 16, by his wife, Ms Stephanie Mburu, when he received a call from a woman only identified as Maureen, who is said to be Omeka’s wife, to join her at Kasarani Police station. They were going there to report Omeka’s disappearance.
It remains unclear why Maureen decided to make a report at Kasarani Police Station near where Obare lived, which is some 20 kilometres away from Kamakis on the Eastern by-pass where she and Omeka lived.
That was on Thursday at 2pm, and according to the family, Obare’s phone was switched off near the police station.
Yet to be summoned
The Daily Nation has established that the woman is yet to be summoned to shed more light on what might have transpired.
Obare’s family has been searching for him since Thursday. On Friday, the family was at Kasarani police station demanding to be told where he had disappeared to.
“My brother disappeared after he turned up at Kasarani Police Station to record a statement over his friend Omeka’s disappearance. His phone was switched off at 2pm and that is the last time we heard from him until Monday when police informed us that his body had been found at City Mortuary,” said Mr Finley Mokaya, his brother.
Found in Magadi
Records at the City mortuary indicate that Obare’s body was taken there in a Kiserian Police Station vehicle after being found in Magadi.
On Facebook, his relatives had asked anyone who might have information that could assist them get him to speak out.
His two sisters, Jeannette Mokaya and Kerubo Mokaya, mourned their brother.
“They did not know how my ever smiling, polite brother was precious to us. Your killers will never know peace. You were too polite to die such a painful death. Visit them everywhere they go. Torment them brother, until they come out to confess. Rest easy my living brother,” said Ms Kerubo.
On Twitter, Frank Obegi was a well-known influencer. He became the talk of town in 2016 after some people accused him of plagiarising work and posting it as his own. Kenyans on Twitter further joked that his plagiarism was going overboard and he should be arrested.
Trending on Twitter
By the time of going to press Tuesday, Obegi’s name was trending on Twitter.
He led a lavish lifestyle that he showed off on his social media accounts.
The Daily Nation has established that Obegi’s social media accounts – on Facebook, where he was known as Frank Obegi, and on Twitter where he was known as Utanisho? @Frankobegi – were pulled down moments after he was last seen alive.
“Each year you pass your death anniversary date without knowing it and someday you will unknowingly pose for a photo that will be used at your funeral,” reads a quote on both his accounts.
On Twitter, his pinned post, done on May 3, reads: “One day we will leave this world behind. So, live the life you will remember.”
‘Not a criminal’
The Nation reached out to his brother, Mr Leytone Teya, who said: “My brother was not in any way a criminal. I don’t have any further comments.”
On Tuesday, Mr Peter Mwanzo, the OCPD Kasarani, said: “Only one of them was living within Kasarani Sub County, but they were all friends. Our preliminary investigations have shown that they led an unexplained life with an unexplained source of wealth. We are still investigating whether they engaged in online fraud linked to cryptocurrency as word has been going round.”
Their close associates told the Daily Nation that they usually took flights around the country and bought bottles of expensive drinks whenever they were with friends.
“In all the times we drank together, the least any of them paid was Sh20,000,” said one of their friends.
Murdered Kasarani four lived life on fast lane, friends reveal
Wednesday, June 22 2022
People Daily
Relatives of one of the murdered Kasarani friends at City Mortuary Nairobi yesterday. PHOTO/ William Oeri
The four friends whose mutilated bodies were found in forests over the weekend lived large, and if the stories by their close friends is anything to go by, their elimination was a matter of when, not if.
They had been accused of being behind a cryptocurrency fraud mostly targeting victims outside the country, with reports indicating that just before they disappeared, they had fleeced their latest victim of Sh1 million in bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a digital currency which operates free of any central control or the oversight of banks, and tech-savvy criminals have taken advantage of this to hack into people’s bank accounts, buy bitcoins, and leave little or no trail.
According to the US Federal Trade Commission, cryptocurrency scammers have stolen over Sh100 billion from 46,000 people since the beginning of 2021.
It has become popular due to the lack of banks to flag suspicious transactions, irreversible transfers and novice investors who are unfamiliar with how crypto works.
The bodies of Obegi, Omeka and Amenya were found in Lari while the badly mutilated body of Mokaya was discovered in Kiserian.
Mokaya reportedly disappeared soon after he went to Kasarani Police Station to report that his friends were missing.
ATM fraud
Last year, Obegi and Amenya are said to have escaped death narrowly at a popular bar in Kasarani when they were saved by police officers.
After they were released from custody, they relocated to their rural homes briefly, according to close friends.
“I am not surprised Obegi died in that manner. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword,” a friend said.
Another close friend identified on Twitter as “Babu Moja” said he and Obegi’s brother had warned him about his behaviour, but he never listened, adding that the gang began with ATM fraud before graduating to cryptocurrency.
“His brother Leyton and some of us at Seasons warned him several times… Rest easy bro Frank Obegi. Guys, kuleni jasho yenu tu, scamming won’t help at all,” he wrote.
He, however, asked police to investigate the murders.
“Nobody should be subjected to such kind of torture, no matter the crime he has committed,” he added.
Account deleted
Another resident said Obegi had two credit cards, both which did not have a PIN, which he would swipe in excess of Sh10,000 at any given time. According to the receipts, the card owners were foreigners.
A former supervisor in a restaurant on Thika Road said Obegi would frequent the lounge and would only sit at the VIP section where a beer goes for Sh500.
“Everyone loved him there,” he said.
According to Obegi’s family members, his social media account had been deleted in unclear circumstances before his death and he had been offline for about five days.
Obegi’s brother, Leyton Obegi, said he last spoke to him on Tuesday, June 14.
“I got a call from one of Frank’s friend’s girlfriend that she had positively identified my brother’s body at the mortuary,” Leyton said.
The three bodies were discovered on Sunday at Monkey Corner area, about 300 metres from the Mutarakwa-Mai Mahiu Road.
During the opening of the DCI Forensic Laboratory on June 13, President Uhuru Kenyatta said mobile money transfers had resulted in an increase in cybercrimes, and ordered for the strengthening of the Cybercrime Unit to deal with crimes that involve misuse of technology.
On June 16, university students Francis Maina and Zellic Alusa, who are suspected of hacking credit cards and using them to purchase bitcoins and converting them to Kenyan currency, were arrested in Nakuru.
Rift Valley DCI boss Mwenda Meme said the two were part of a gang behind the hacking of financial institutions, including banks.
“They operate in the country and abroad, and usually create fake email accounts which they use to hack credit cards of victims, most of whom live abroad. They use the cash to buy bitcoins that are then converted to Kenyan currency,” said Meme.
Revealed: How Frank Obegi, four friends spent their final hours
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Nation Media Group
One of the four men from Kasarani in Nairobi whose bodies were found in three different counties two weeks ago had just returned to the capital from a weekend trip to Diani, Kwale County.
Elijah Omeka, whom the Nation has established was a doctor of philosophy (PhD) student at Kenyatta University, left Nairobi on Friday, June 10, in the company of two other friends whom the Nation cannot name for security reasons.
The two friends, who were not among those who were killed, intimated that Omeka did not have money and that they had funded the short holiday in Diani.
Causing a disturbance
The duo further revealed that they travelled to Mombasa via train and that one of their friends was arrested at the Nairobi standard gauge railway terminus for causing a disturbance.
The Nation learnt that, once word reached Frank Obegi, who was the best-known of the four slain men due to his social media activities, that Omeka was back from Mombasa, he tried to contact the PhD student. When he failed to reach Omeka, Obegi texted a mutual friend identified only as Lameck, asking about the PhD student’s whereabouts
“Do you have money for drinks we come for a party,” asked Obegi.
Also roped into the plan for drinks was Fred Obare, who was Obegi’s neighbour at Seasons in Kasarani.
Pending matters
Moses Nyachae, who lived about two kilometres away at Santon, excused himself as he did not have money and had pending matters to handle regarding his online writing account.
Obegi and Obare then headed to Roysambu, on the opposite side of the Thika superhighway and ordered a round of Senator Keg beer as they waited for Omeka to resurface.
According to family members and a WhatsApp group of which the four friends were members, and whose content the Nation has seen, Omeka was never to resurface. The caretakers at the apartments where Obegi and Obare lived told the Nation that the two never returned to their houses after they left on Tuesday, June 14, in the afternoon.
Obegi and Obare’s bodies were discovered five days later in the same location in Lari, Kiambu County, alongside those of Kasarani politician Joseph Njau and Perminus Wanjohi, in what hints at the possibility that they were all kidnapped and murdered by the same people.
White Honda Fit
No one knows yet at what point Omeka was kidnapped. He is said to have left his house at Kamaki’s, off the Eastern Bypass in Nairobi, in a white Honda Fit registration number KCL 233G on June 14, the same day he was supposed to meet Obegi and Obare.
Omeka’s wife, Doreen Makena, called Nyachae a day later only to be informed that Obegi and Obare’s phones had also been switched off.
The two reported the matter at Kasarani Police Station at 10am on Thursday, June 16.
Parted at the gate
Makena says that they both left the station safely and parted at the gate.
Thereafter, Nyachae left for town where he was supposed to collect a package that had been sent by his mother from Kisii.
The package, which comprised a bunch of bananas, beans and sweet potatoes was supposed to be shared between Nyachae and his sister, who lives in Machakos.
The Nation learnt that two days earlier, Nyachae had called his mother and informed her that he did not have food.
“I told him to share with his sister whatever I had sent him,” Nyachae’s mother Priscilla said when the Nation visited their home in Keroka.
“The bus company that I used to send the package texted me at mid-day on June 16, saying the package had been picked up by Moses Nyachae, then at 5pm his sister called saying his phone was off and that the package had not arrived in Machakos,” said Nyachae’s mother, who added that she had talked to her son at 8am on the day he disappeared.
From our analysis of the times and circumstances under which the four friends disappeared, we can report that Obegi and Obare were kidnapped around Roysambu on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 14.
For his part, Omeka was kidnapped after leaving his house in Kamakis on the same day while Nyachae was kidnapped on June 16 after picking up the parcel from town and dumped in Magadi, Kajiado County.
Interestingly, despite availability of technology that could have helped retrieve mobile phone records, which in turn could have shown the last people these men communicated with and where their gadgets were switched off, no one has been able to account for their last moments.
Surveillance cameras
No CCTV footage has been provided to show the movement of Omeka’s car despite availability of surveillance cameras on all major city roads.
Omeka’s badly mutilated body was found at the Machakos hospital mortuary on June 25, more than 11 days after he left his house to meet his friends. His right leg had been chopped off and placed next to the rest of the body. The rib cage had reportedly been “ripped open”.
Wanted them dead
That the four friends were kidnapped in a span of 48 hours and dumped in Magadi, Lari and Machakos, more than 60 kilometres from where they were last seen, shows that whoever wanted them dead wanted it so badly.
Additionally, the killings were done so clinically that it would be hard to find out who did it and why.
“Even though Obegi’s body was badly mutilated, we are glad that we have laid him to rest. I plead with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government to investigate why young men are being killed,” said Obegi’s father Evans Mose during his burial in Bogwendo village, Nyamira County, on Tuesday.
Interestingly, the police are yet to record statements from the families of the four men and no one seems to know which police division is leading investigations between Kasarani and Lari.
The only update from the police came on the day the bodies of the four were found, with Kasarani Divisional Police Commander Peter Mwanzo saying that “they led an unexplained life with an unexplained source of wealth”.
“We are still investigating whether they engaged in online fraud linked to cryptocurrency, as word has been going round,” said the police boss.
But with the police having gone silent on the murders and the burials of the four men all set to be completed next week, we may never know who wanted these friends dead and why.
Financially successful
The Nation established that Omeka was the oldest and most financially successful.
Besides the Honda Fit, he also owned a Toyota Prado and lived in his own house at Kamaki’s.
A visit to their homes, all of which fall within a 20-kilometre radius in Kitutu Masaba, Nyamira County, revealed that Omeka’s family is relatively wealthier. Apart from living in a sizeable mansion, his family also owns a block of rental houses at Omogonchoro market along the Kisii–Nyamira road.
The Nation also established that Obare and Nyachae, who hailed from Nyambaria and Riomanga villages, had been students at Kenyatta University but never completed their studies. Like Obegi, the two came from very humble backgrounds.
Youngest of the four
Obegi, the youngest of the four by at least 10 years, came to Nairobi in 2016 after writing his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams at Cardinal Otunga High School in Kisii.
He then enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in ICT at Multi Media University.
Obare and Nyachae were admitted to Kenyatta University and would have completed their studies in 2011.
At Kenyatta University, the two young men became friends with Omeka, who had been admitted to study a business-related course. Those who knew them said they were ordinary village boys come to the city but somewhere along the way they stumbled onto a mysterious source of money that made university education seem unimportant.
The young men would flaunt cash at the Student Centre and could be seen driving around; a status symbol on campus.
Then they all moved out of the university hostels to the neighbouring Kahawa Wendani estate.
Besides offering alternative accommodation, Kahawa Wendani was the business hub for the Kenyatta University community.
Here, enterprising students could make money doing assignments, term papers and sitting online exams on behalf of clients in developed countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
The illegal business, dubbed online writing, has become so popular among Kenyan university students that some just open accounts and sell them to their peers.
Money from the internet
One such account can fetch a minimum of Sh20,000 per month. It is here that Omeka, Obare and Nyachae discovered that they could make money from the internet.
“We moved with those boys from KU to Wendani and then they moved to Kasarani after their fortunes improved,” said a source who was their college mate and friend.
It is while they were residing in Kahawa Wendani and earning a living from online writing that they are suspected to have discovered a more lucrative and probably risky source of income.
Frank Obegi and his friends were at times flush with cash, but mostly flat broke
Friday, July 01, 2022
Nation Media Group
As friends and relatives filed past the casket bearing the body of Frankline Obegi at his parents’ humble abode in Bogwendo village, Nyamira County on Tuesday, those who had known him as a high-flying social media influencer must have found it hard to believe that his story had ended so tragically.
Besides the modest atmosphere of his parents’ rural home, a majority of the village folk the Daily Nation spoke to knew him as an ordinary young man from a poor family, with his relatives pleading with anyone who knew the whereabouts of his “money” to hand it over.
“I want the government to provide evidence that my son had a lot of money. I will forever be troubled if they do not do that,” said Mr Evans Mose.
“Our son was a good man who was even struggling in his education. He deferred his university classes for a year for lack of money,” an uncle said.
Considered a Twitter bigwig due to his huge following on social media before his mutilated body and those of his three friends were found in Lari Forest, Kiambu County, the stars seemed to have aligned for Obegi and the young man was poised for big money and influence.
Until everything shut down all of a sudden.
Despite his huge social media following and claims of life on the fast lane, to residents of Bogwendo village, Obegi was just another young man who had been sent to university in the hope that he would one someday change the fortunes of his poor family.
Sadly, that was not to be. Not only did the 26-year-old not graduate from university, his life was cut short by unknown people who gouged out his eyes and chopped off his genitals.
It was a bitter end that saw many of his friends and relatives break down in tears at the funeral. Obegi’s brother, Lyetton, told the Nation that they just wanted to get over with the whole ordeal.
“We just want to lay him to rest so that the stories on the internet and the mainstream media stop,” he told us when we visited his home. “Anybody can get a few shillings and buy stuff then post photos on social media. It doesn’t mean that they are rich,” he said.
What still baffles many is how Obegi rose from such a humble background to become a social media star who could splurge tens of thousands of shillings on drinks in a single night.
Even in death, Obegi has become the face of the ‘Kasarani Four’, as the group comprising himself, Elijah Omeka, Fred Obare and Moses Nyachae, whose bodies were found in three different counties, has been christened. Obegi, who was the youngest of the four, joined the group by chance during the early days of the Covid- 19 pandemic, when all learning institutions were shut down. Before the pandemic, Obegi was just another Information Technology student at Multi Media University who was struggling to pay school fees.
He was also an avid Twitter user who gained notoriety and a huge following for angering Kenyans with his plagiarised tweets, including one lifted from former United States President Donald Trump’s Twitter handle. Livid Kenyans on Twitter – or KOT, as the amorphous group of social media users refer to themselves – demanded Obegi’s arrest through the hashtags #JailObegi and #Arrest Obegi.
“Obegi will one day steal his own identity if we don’t stop him, so please save us and jail Obegi,” one Twitter user joked at the height of Obegi’s Twitter notoriety in 2016. It was not until mid-2020 that Obegi started appearing in Kasarani, where he made friends first with Obare and Nyachae and later with Omeka. By that time, all education institutions and entertainment joints had been shut due to Covid-19.
“Obegi joined the crew by chance after he started turning up for drinking sessions,” a friend of the four men who were murdered told us. The sessions were not fancy at all. The group mainly enjoyed their drinks inside cars. It all began at a spot in Seasons, Kasarani, and at Clayworks off Thika Road. Sometimes, they enjoyed the drinks in Roysambu, which is also in Kasarani Sub-county. Alcohol, mostly gin and various mixers, would be bought by the bottle from nearby wines and spirits shops and drunk using plastic tumblers. Sometimes girls, a majority of whom also hailed from Nyamira, would be invited to the parties.
Omeka, who had by then moved from Kasarani to Kamakis on the Eastern Bypass, would join them once in a while, as he would also hang out with another set of “business friends”.
These friends included Joseph Njau Ngendo, the politician whose body was found dumped alongside those of Obegi and Obare in Lari on June 19.
Njau was at that time battling a court case after being arrested while trafficking five kilos of cocaine the year before. He was reportedly trying to maintain a low profile as he sought an alternative source of income.
According to police records, the politician was part of a larger heroin distribution network in Nairobi that procured narcotics from a Nigerian who was based in Kampala, Uganda.
“Njau is a frequent traveller to Uganda. He has a pattern of leaving Kenya through the Busia border and coming back to Kenya through the Malaba border. He does this to evade detection,” said one police report that the Nation has seen.
It was not only Omeka who had a separate group of friends dabbling in suspicious activities. Obare too was known to hang out with Jack Anyango, Omeka Obuong, Benjamin Imbai and Brian Oduor, the four men who were kidnapped as they left a restaurant in Kitengela and murdered last April. It is not known what sort of business Obare was doing with the Kitengela Four, whose disappearance and murders mirror that of the Kasarani Four.
“They [the Kitengela Four] knew all the boys in the group from Kasarani but they were closer to Fred [Obare],” a friend who used to join them for drinks told the Nation.
“They [the Kitengela Four] knew all the boys in the group from Kasarani but they were closer to Fred [Obare],” a friend who used to join them for drinks told the Nation.
“In fact, Fred was drinking with them [the Kitengela Four] that morning in Kasarani, before they left for Kitengela where they were kidnapped,” said the friend.
It is in these circumstances that Obegi became a member of a gang that police say was involved in online fraud linked to cryptocurrency and other crimes.
As rightly claimed by their families, the four started out as online writers, like many other Kenyatta University (KU) students who lived in Kahawa Wendani, just across the road from KU’s main campus. Obare reportedly did online writing up to the day he died and mainly whenever he did not have money.
Online writing was however a fall-back plan or a cover, as police have linked the group to an international credit card fraud syndicate that has sucked in so many Kenyan university students that Kasarani and Kahawa Wendani have now been listed as hotspots by law enforcement agencies.
In fact, Obegi, Obare and Nyachae had been arrested on several occasions – including a week before their disappearance – by officers from Kasarani Police Station but were never charged.
“We have contributed money countless times to get these boys out of police trouble, especially Obare and Obegi,” said a friend.
Each year, about 115 million debit and credit cards are stolen in developed countries and posted on the dark web, according to Gemini Advisory, a cybersecurity firm that tracks underground marketplaces and forums.
Experts say the internet is made up of three tiers; the surface web, which is accessible to anyone with data, a communications device and can access a browser such as Google; the deep web, which contains password-protected sites like Facebook or Twitter; and the dark web, which requires special browsers such as Tor, Freenet, Subgraph and Waterfox.
The difference between the dark web and normal browsers is that users are able to hide their identities. Every day millions of stolen credit cards, cryptocurrency accounts, hacked Gmail and Twitter accounts, purchasable malware and even drugs are sold on the dark web.
International credit card scamming syndicates have identified Kenya as a good location to launder their stolen funds due to its robust financial technology sector, powered by Mpesa. Those who know the Kasarani Four say they were part of local gangs that helped international credit card scamming syndicates to launder their cash. Dozens of other university students living especially in Kahawa Wendani finance their lavish lifestyles this way.
In most cases, money stolen from credit cards in countries such as the US is deposited into accounts held by the Kenyan university students who have a close-knit circle that is difficult to penetrate. The fraudsters then send a fake invoice to their Kenyan counterparts for some fictitious service. After receiving the invoice, the Kenyan associates wire the money indicated on the invoice to some other bank account owned by the fraudsters and earn a commission.
Those who have been in the business long enough and have IT skills do the hacking themselves by purchasing details of stolen credit cards on the dark web or on Telegram. The hacked credit cards are then used to order expensive food at hotels, alcoholic drinks, electronic gadgets and even cars.
This is done quickly lest the owners abroad realise their cards have been hacked and ask their banks to block them. This is perhaps why those who came across Omeka, Obegi, Obare and Nyachae think that they were living large.
In reality, however, the four friends did not have money to fund the kind of lavish lifestyle they are accused of living. This is because every time they made a hit, they had to spend the money quickly before it got blocked.
It was a seesaw. One day they would be spending tens of thousands in a nightclub with beautiful women and the next they would be drinking cheap beer and pleading with their parents upcountry to send some bananas or maize as they did not have money for food.
