A group of Kenyans conspired to defraud various county governments in the US of Ksh60 million by posing as employees from a leading IT company.
Washington Post reported that Robert Muli, a 60-year-old Kenyan immigrant who lived in Ohio, admitted to having participated in the fraud.
He told the Alexandria Federal Court on Monday that he conspired with people from Kenya to defraud governments across the United States, including those of the cities of Philadelphia and Detroit and the state of Vermont.
A photo of a Courthouse in the United States
A co-conspirator in Kenya would email a contact in the local governments pretending to be an employee of a leading IT firm, asking the local governments to redirect payments to an alternative bank account.
Muli would then withdraw that money and transfer it to various accounts.
The scam took place between the months of August and September 2018.
Investigations commenced when the IT firm raised concerns that it had not received payments for services rendered.
“In September 2018, Fairfax County identified a financial fraud and immediately reported the incident to law enforcement,” county spokesman Tony Castrilli told the court.
Muli was the only one arraigned as one of his co-conspirators fled the country and the rest were in Kenya.
He is set to be sentenced on October 4 and faces up to 20 years in prison.
