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Unsuspecting job seekers lost millions of shillings to unscrupulous officers and conmen who promised them admission letters in the recently concluded police recruitment.

Investigations have also revealed that recruitment officers pocketed close to Sh500 million in the exercise that was conducted on March 24 across the country.

However, the extent of the fraud cannot be immediately established as many successful recruits who paid between Sh200,000 and Sh300,000 and are already in the various training colleges are reluctant to discuss the matter since it may jeopardise their training.

At least 10 people including police and Kenya Prisons Service officers have been arrested in the last one week for defrauding job seekers of about Sh5 million.

The cases are rampant despite the warning by Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai to the recruits not to engage in corruption.  Mutyambai had also warned that any officer involved in the recruitment exercise found to be engaging in malpractice will be disciplined.

“We will have very high-level oversight of the exercise to guarantee the integrity of the process,” the IG said through the NPS spokesperson Bruno Shioso.

However, despite the widespread corruption, no officer was found to have been involved in the malpractice, thanks to the blue code of silence.

Kenyans conned

Shioso yesterday confirmed they had received numerous reports of Kenyans having been conned

“Many cases are coming up. We are appealing to victims to come forward. Many senior officers’ names were used too,” Shioso said, adding that some conmen even used his name to defraud unsuspecting parents.

“Many such cases are under investigation by the DCI,” the spokesman said.

The brazen manner in which the fraudsters conned the job-seekers has also baffled the detectives. In one of the latest cases, three Prisons officers and a police Sergeant were arrested on Saturday after they obtained a total of Sh2.1 million from a couple by pretending they were in a position to secure admissions for their relatives at the Police College.

Stella Kemunto and Josiah Ounde told the detectives they had been promised the positions by Jefferson Kivuva.

They gave him the cash and academic certificates and they were then issued with the admission letters. They however suspected they were fake and raised alarm.

As a result, Corporal Beatrice Wambua Kamau, Corporal Florence Ndung’u Wanjiku, both of Prison headquarters, Corporal Ben Mburu of Industrial Area Remand and Sergeant Violet Gachomo of Industrial Area motor vehicle depot were arrested.

Other suspects managed to escape in a black Toyota Noah. A quick search was conducted on a Toyota Probox and 20 fake docket numbers were found inside the car. Also found were academic documents belonging to different people.

In another case, the dreams of two men and a woman of joining the police service after paying a bribe of Sh1.8 million were shattered after it was revealed that the admission letters they had been issued were actually fake.

The three – Dismas Kibungei Kirwa 25, Felix Kirwa Kiprotich 28 and Mercy Jepng’etich Kosgei 20 – had paid  Sh600,000 each to persons purporting to be senior police officers. They were then advised to travel from their rural Nandi county to Nairobi where further plans were to be made on how they would report to the college.

On Wednesday, the trio travelled to Nairobi accompanied by their parents where they assembled near Hilton Hotel and were issued the letters.  They were then taken to a place along Thika Road where they were handed over to Martin Nyaga Mbuba who was to take them to Kiganjo, Nyeri County. They boarded a Toyota Noah and left for Kiganjo. On reaching Karatina, they made a stopover to have lunch near Mathais supermarket, according to the police.

However, the driver later claimed he found the vehicle missing from where he had parked it.

“The suspect failed to convince the complainants and the suspect made attempts to escape, but he was caught up by one of the complainants with the assistance of members of the public,” police said. It was later established that the letters were fake and that the intention was not to take the three to college.

Denied reports

As a result, the job seekers lost their original national ID cards and certificates and other personal effects. The recently concluded police recruitment was marred with reports of bribery where some slots were issued to only those who paid up to Sh500,000. Police headquarters has however denied the reports.

Fraudsters and some rogue police officers have been taking advantage of helpless job seekers to defraud them for money by purporting to issue them with letters of admission to the police training colleges.

On Friday last week, five other recruits were arrested at the Embakasi Police Training College with fake admission letters. Junior Maluki Muthambii 21, Patrick Kioko Mutambuki 28, Collins Kirwa 22, Dennis Cheruiyot 25, and Timothy Kipyego had reported at the college and upon scrutiny, the letters were found to be fake.