Sometime last year, Gibson Murage Gitonga reached out to me seeking assistance in tracking down a group of conmen who had defrauded unsuspecting Kenyans of millions of shillings using a phantom company that had almost perfectly mirrored Modern Furniture Pacific.
What these criminals did was both calculated and audacious.
They cloned the brand—same style of invoices, similar delivery books, copied documents, and even created convincing online platforms that appeared legitimate to any ordinary customer. We launched a manhunt that lasted three days.
Eventually, our trail led us to the dingy backstreets of Free Area in Nakuru, and Kanu Street where the suspects had been hiding and running their fraudulent operations.
At one point, we even had to arrest one suspect’s mother and have her “admitted” at a Nakuru Hospital as part of a tactical ploy to lure him out of hiding.
The mother was receiving part of the loot and her ID had been used to register several lines.
The pressure worked. One by one, the suspects fell. We shut down their websites.
Their till numbers and bank accounts were frozen and closed. Even the verified Facebook and Instagram accounts they were using to trap customers were brought down.
The case is ongoing.
But what stood out the most in this entire saga was something far more unsettling than the fraud itself.
The masterminds were Murage’s former employees. These were men he had trusted. Men he had given an opportunity inside his workshop.
Men who had access to his systems, documents, and internal operations. They walked away with that knowledge… and weaponized it.
Within a few short months, the three suspects had siphoned millions of shillings from unsuspecting Kenyans. By the time Murage realized what was happening, the damage had already been done. A
nd here lies the uncomfortable truth. These were not strangers
. These were not outsiders.
They were Kamaus. Mwangis. Njoroges. Andũ a Nyũmba. Murage simply said out loud what many of us quietly admit over a drink but rarely dare to state publicly:
Trust within our own circles has become dangerously fragile.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have said it so openly. Perhaps the truth stings too much when spoken plainly. But maybe—just maybe—it is a conversation we must finally have. Copied.
