Flying Squad pitches camp at Barclays Bank in Nairobi over fake currency syndicate

Flying Squad officers on Tuesday pitched tent at Barclays Bank Kenya, Queensway branch, Nairobi, as they investigated a fake currency syndicate that has taken the city by storm.

Accompanied by detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the officers spent hours at the bank, with reports indicating that a customer had brought in a haul of fake cash.

The hitherto unnamed client is said to have been keeping fake dollars in one of the bank’s safes.

According to Daily Nation report, the man is said to have been bringing potential investors to the bank to see his ‘largesse’ and police suspect he was on a mission to con the businesspeople.

He was cornered by the officers on Tuesday morning after he came to check on his ‘wealth’ running into ‘billions of shillings’.

Operations at the bank were temporarily disrupted as the contingent, which arrived in several vehicles, alighted, stormed the banking hall on Kenyatta Avenue and started searching for the fake bills.

The investigations come barely a month after Officers from the Special Crimes Prevention Unit seized a huge cache of fake currencies, foreign and local, that were hidden in a residential house in Ruiru.

Police told the press the fake currency amounted to Sh32 billion and did not reveal how they reached such a figure.

Ruiru Police Commander James Ng’etich said the money had been stacked in at least 20 metal boxes.

Among the currencies in the boxes were euros, pounds, dollars and Kenyan currency.

Three suspects — a couple and their female business associate — were arrested and charged in court.

Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti later clarified that Sh2 billion in fake US dollars was found stashed in Barclays Bank client’s safe deposit box.

This was after Flying Squad officers, led by their boss Musa Yego, pitched tent at the bank’s Queensway branch, Nairobi, to investigate a fake currency syndicate that took the city by storm.