Flamboyant businessman Don Bosco Gichana has been fined Tsh300,000,000 (Ksh15 million) after pleading guilty to money laundering and fraud charges. He was sentenced in a plea-bargain deal in which he admitted guilty of conspiracy to commit crime of money laundering for a negotiated lesser sentence of five years in prison (which he has already served and a fine of about 15million)
He will secure his freedom after paying the fine. The youthful businesses cum politician has been in Arusha prison for over 5 years
Gichana also admitted the four exhibits presented by the prosecution, Tanzanian media reported.
He was accused that between 2008 and 2010 he filed false tax returns electronically to the US State Department of Treasury internal revenue service using different names of Dale Houston, Herbert Breneman and Syron Hess among others.
The prosecution argued that in the false tax return, Gichana indicated addresses of his co-conspirators who at the material time were living in the US.
Gichana was first arrested on March 29, 2013, when he went to Tanzania to visit Mwale who had been in detention since August 2011 over various charges, among them money laundering.
He was arrested at the Namanga border point on his way back to Kenya after visiting Mwale at the Arusha Central Prison.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga is believed to have sought the intervention of Tanzanian President John Magufuli to have him released.
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