Court Orders over Sh100 Million Seized from Nigerian Man at JKIA Deposited at Central Bank

A Nairobi court has ordered the more than Sh100 million seized from a Nigerian national on Friday be deposited at the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

The High Court on Wednesday ordered CBK to take custody of the money pending investigations into an alleged money-laundering scheme.

This came after the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) on Monday filed a case seeking to freeze the money.

The amount was confiscated from a Nigerian man identified as Mauzu Bala at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi.

The foreigner was traveling to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Nigeria and had stashed the money in a suitcase.

ARA says there are reasons to believe that the money may be proceeds of crime obtained from a complex money-laundering scheme.

"His failure to declare that he was carrying such a huge amount of documents to support the legitimacy of the cash, raises suspicion of money laundering," ARA says in court filings.

Court documents indicate that the cash was meant for business in Dubai but Bala lacked documents to support the source, purpose, and movement of the millions. The money includes 880,000 US dollars, 60,000 Euros, and 63,000 Nigerian Naira.

“To effectively investigate the matter, DCI Transnational Organized Crime Detectives (TOCU) are working with the Asset Recovery Agency (ARA). The seized cash is believed to be from International Criminal Cartels,” the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said in a statement on Wednesday.