A man who police have described as a serial felon has been arrested pending the conclusion of investigations into allegations that he has been personating a gun licensing officer and conning gun holders.
The DCI said in a statement on Monday that the suspect, 42, was arrested over the weekend in response to a court order issued by the Kahawa Law Courts.
The order was issued after intelligence reports implicated him in a ring that issued forged firearm certificates to unvetted gun owners.
“Transnational Organized Crime detectives busted him in possession of assorted fake FLB documents and stamps at his Nguluni home in Matungulu, Machakos County,” DCI Mohamed Amin said.
Until his arrest, the suspect was fighting another court case for stealing a firearm and was out on a Sh500,000 (N1,785,005.42) bond, according to him.
This was after he duped a young man in Kajiado into thinking he was a Firearms Licensing Board (FLB) officer in a position to transfer his father’s gun ownership to him.
According to the DCI, he led the young man on a wild goose chase before stealing the gun from him after subjecting him to a barrage of paperwork.
“Upon his arrest, assorted filled firearm application forms, psychiatrist reports from Mathari Referral Hospital, bearing different names, a seal from the Central Firearms Bureau, various FLB and Armatech Kenya Ltd rubbers stamps, four civilian firearm certificates, forged letters allegedly from the Nairobi region police command and several bank statements were seized,” Amin said.
He said that the suspect and his associates prey on vulnerable victims by impersonating well-connected FLB officers and issuing them with forged gun ownership certificates.
Amin explained that as part of their strategy, they renew the fake gun ownership documents on a regular basis for Sh6,000 (N21,420.07).