One Alice Wanjiru Wamwea has accused Faulu Bank of a well-calculated scheme to defraud her Sh150million property which is located at Jonsaga, Huruma Estate in Nairobi County.
According to her, she bought the property which was then a three-storey building, in 1991 from Jason Mwangi at Sh16 million and developed it to four more storeys.
“Since I wanted to develop the property, I charged the property and took a loan of sh 65 million from Faulu Microfinance Bank to do final touches on the building,” she said in court documents.
Wanjiru says the bank allowed her to take the third loan since she had promptly repaid the first two loans she had taken from the bank.
“Upon getting the third loan, the bank took control of the rental income. It was supposed to account for the rental income and provide me with my statement on loan repayment status,” she said in court documents.
However she claims problem started when the manager handling her account was transferred from Ongata Rongai where her account was to Thika Branch.
“My efforts to have my account transferred to the manager’s Thika station were thwarted by the bank. The bank also refused to give me my statements to show how it was collecting the rental income and the loan repayment schedule,” she said.
She says at one time, she discovered the bank had debited her sh 6 million which was done by some crooked bank officials out to defraud her.
She claimed that in March, an auction advert was circulated by Antique Auctions under instructions from the bank to allegedly recover Sh73 million when the statements indicated she only had an outstanding loan of Sh7 million.
Antique Auctions went ahead and sold the property to Oksama Investment Supplies Limited, which is now laying claim to the property.
Court Proceedings
While giving his testimony before the Milimani court, Chief inspector Isaack Ogutu told the court that a forensic document examiner made a report stating that the signature of Alice Wanjiru Wamwea a complainant in the matter was forged where the bank auctioned her property at Sh 85 million alleging that she failed to settle a loan she borrowed in the said bank.
Wamwea lodged a complaint before the court to salvage her property LR NO 209/11315 which the bank took in possession and sold it for what they termed as failure to pay the loan she borrowed from them.
In her testimony, the widow told the court that she borrowed Sh 52 million loan from Faulu Bank in order to develop the property by building rental houses where the money was disbursed in two separate payments at a rate of 12% per annum given a period of 54 months.
She put the title of the property as security of the loan and signed the relevant documents in regards to the loan request.
The second loan was disbursed as she continued to pay the first loan as agreed.
According to the statement she recorded, she requested the bank statements to understand status of her two accounts and she was never provided,
“I was paying the loan as per the agreement but when I requested for the bank statements they never produced not even one, to the juncture I sensed something was wrong,” read her statement.
She proceeded to the Co-operative bank seeking loan to offset the one in Faulu.
She was given an offer by the Co-operative bank which she signed for the bank to undertake and pay the loan at Faulu on her behalf.
The bank had valued the property and found its value amounted to Sh 150 million.
Faulu refused to release the statements and documents including the copy of the title deed to Co-operative bank instead they cleared the holding account with Sh 58,952,900 which was contrary to the letter of offer.
Due to these reasons, they refused to disburse the loan.
The Investigation revealed that the complainant had opened two accounts one being a holding account where the deducted loan from the main one were to be deposited.
Ogutu said that the monies which were remmitted from the main account for loan repayment according to the documents amounted to 58,952,900 of which it was not remitted for the intended purpose of loan payment,
The holding account had 58,952,900 for the purpose of paying the loan as per the documents but the money was transferred to other accounts without deducting the loan due.
She told the court that she never signed any document for the loan of Sh 65 million and was astonished to learn about that information.
“I never borrowed a loan of 65 million but this is the amount I paid for the loan I borrowed together with interest accrued,” Wamwea said.
Forensics
During this point the investigators collected specimen signatures from previous bank transaction documents she had signed and that foreign document and subjected them to documents examiner at DCI Headquarters banking unit for analysis.
The report which was produced before the court by the documents examiner concluded that the signatures were not originated from the same person.
Investigations further revealed that the subject property had been sold through the auction company Oceans Investment Supplying Limited with reasons of failure to settle a loan.
Six accused persons including three Faulu bank officials, auctioneer and two traders were arrested in relation with the offence and charged in court.
Faulu Microfinance bank credit officers Amos Mugweru mwangi, Peter Kefa Onsongo and Tom Jaseme together with Trader Paul Njuki, businesswoman Esther Muthoni Maina and auctioneer Robert Wamwere Maina were charged that on diverse dates at unknown place in Nairobi within Nairobi county jointly conspired to defraud Alice Wanjiru Wamwea by means of fraudulent auction of her property LR NO 209/11315, in Huruma which valued at Sh 150 million.
They were further charged with the offence of stealing contrary to section 275 of the penal code.
Mugweru and Muthoni were separately charged with the offences of stealing and forgery respectively.
The court heard that on March 23 at unknown place in Nairobi Muthoni forged the signature of Alice Wanjiru Wamwea on Faulu Bank application form purporting it to be genuine signature of said Wamwea.
On diverse dates between August 8 and April 11, at Faulu Bank head office in Nairobi county jointly with others who were not in court Mugweru stole Sh 22,000,000 the property of Alice Wanjiru Wamwea.
Muthoni is charged with forging the signature of Wamwea on Faulu Bank Loan application form purporting it to be genuine signature of the complainant.
The matter will be mentioned on November 28 to confirm compliance of written submissions.
KenyanHour 