Serial Motor Vehicle Logbook Fraudster Is Free

A serial motor vehicle registration fraudster involved in a multi-million shillings logbooks forgery enterprise is out on a 100,000 cash bail.

According to a verdict issued yesterday by a Makadara Court, George Gitu, one of the brains behind a new crime wave involving brokers and insiders at the NTSA, who obtain credit from micro-finance institutions using forged logbooks is free.

This is after an application by the DCI sleuths seeking further custodial orders to detain the suspect and complete investigations were turned down.

The con who lives a soft life on other people’s sweat obtained over 4.4 million shillings through forged logbooks of four vehicles belonging to unsuspecting vehicle owners.

Gitu, who works with crooked NTSA officials at the ICT department was registered in the TIMS system as the bonafide owner of KCD 974Z, Isuzu D-Max, KCR, 280R Toyota Vanguard and KCL 922G, Toyota Landcruiser Prado and fraudulently went ahead to obtain credit using the vehicles’ forged documents.

After acquiring 1.5 million shillings from Northwave Credit, 1.4 million shillings from Momentum Ltd, and 843,000 shillings from Bidii Credit, the logbooks were reverted to their original owners, in a well-choreographed scheme.

The owners were left at the mercy of ruthless auctioneers who later went for the vehicles that had been used as security to finance Githu’s and his accomplices’ lifestyles. In one sad case, a physically challenged woman based in Thika had received the Toyota Prado as a gift from her daughter.

The fraudsters drive top of the range vehicles, posing as legitimate businessmen in the thriving property, and logistics sectors, while all they do is identify a vehicle on the road or at a parking slot, before contacting their partners in crime at the NTSA and have the vehicle registered in their names. They then rush to micro-finance institutions and obtain credit.

So far, five suspects in this syndicate have been arrested by DCI crime busters based at NTSA, since the crackdown began in December last year following a public outcry.

The detectives who have been joined by their counterparts from the Crime Research & Intelligence Bureau are currently on the trail of three more suspects who are part of this miscreant gang, that has left vehicle owners in the country living in fear of their vehicles being auctioned for defaulting on loans they know nothing about.