Investigators in Narok are looking for an alleged fraudster who is charged with writing a fake check for Ksh936,000.
The payment was sent to Maripet Ole Noontaye for 155 lambs that he had butchered at the Neema slaughterhouse in Nairobi’s Lucky Summer neighborhood more than a month earlier.
Mwenda Athaiba, the director of Narok County Criminal Investigations, stated that the suspect committed the crime on March 22, 2023, in Nairobi. According to Athaiba, authorities are looking for the alleged criminal.
Athaiba stated: “Some two people have reported the matter to my office and the suspect is wanted for defrauding them of close to Ksh1 million by depositing a bad cheque to their account. Up to this point, he has just been leading them in circles.”
Athaiba said the suspect issued a bouncing cheque payable by Absa Bank Kenya PLC, that was deposited to the client’s bank account at Equity Bank but turned out to have insufficient funds.
This was confirmed on April 18, 2023, when Noontaye received a message from his bank that the cheque had been returned to the drawer since the account had no funds.
In an exclusive interview, Noontaye told K24 Digital that he, with his partner Lemashon Kool, bought the sheep in Narok and ferried them to Neema slaughterhouse in Lucky Summer for sale.
“We are demanding Ksh936,000 from him as the balance of the sale. We have reported the matter to the police in Narok and recorded a statement and police say they are looking for him,” Noontaye said.
Noontaye says the businessman, Abdul Rahim Alhariri, accompanied by his partner only known as Omar, came to the slaughterhouse and agreed to buy their sheep at Ksh540 per Kg.
“After we agreed he ordered the slaughter of the 155 sheep, directing us to store the meat inside a giant deep freezer in the facility. After slaughtering, we got 2,103.9kgs, which sold at sh540 per Kg translating to Ksh1.13 million. Out of this, Alhariri paid Ksh200,000 cash through the account and promised to issue a cheque for the balance,” Noontaye says.
“After slaughtering, he told us that he was rushing to Eastleigh in Nairobi to change dollars to Kenyan money, but shortly, he called to inform us the exchange rate was too high and we should wait till the following day to get our money,” said Kool.
Kool said that never happened as they were taken in circles for one week, as the buyer calls went unanswered until they lured the buyer through another livestock trader to Kariobangi slaughterhouse in the pretence of doing business with him.
“It’s then that we caught up with him and a bitter argument ensued between us before he led us to a hotel in Westlands in Nairobi where he issued the bad cheque through his partner Omar,” Kool says.
That was the last time they saw him.
