The day I fell in the hands of conmen!

For the last couple of months I have adopted the norm of perusing my home country newspapers every morning to see what’s new. I am always eager to read about how things are going. Some of the areas that interest me a great deal are those that cover personal experiences. 

Yesterday Kenya Daily Nation carried one of those stories. The article, “Day a fake lottery card landed me in deep trouble with the law,” by Murithi Mutiga was one that made me laugh all the way till the end.  It is a story that I clearly and vividly resonates with. I have been a victim too and most probably by the very same boys.

  Mutiga tells of a story of his talkative and humorous cousin “De” who almost got him into trouble for coming to his rescue. In a nutshell the long story goes like this, “De” had on the previous night prior to meeting Mutiga at his work place, been approached by two young men who purportedly had won a lottery of Ksh. 100,000 and were looking for how he would help them claim it. 

“De”  knowing he had a ‘well-connected’ cousin then sort the help of  Mutiga who would take him to claim it from the Charity Sweepstake office. Mutiga then decided to ask one of his friends to accompany them to fulfill the Kikuyu proverb that goes mundu umwe ndeheragirwo njira (two are better than one-paraphrased). What happened after was to be a shock for everyone!

Without any doubt or qualms I am convinced that I fell under the traps of the same boys. If they happened to be different bunch of boys , then it is a well organised cartel out to swindle unsuspecting public of their hard earned money. The way they orchestrated and executed their plan against me and Mutiga and “De” sounds similar.

Here is the reconstruction of my story!

An African child is expected after people have invested on your education that you will be able to stand on your own feet and probably, if possible be able to give back to your community. Having acquired a university certificate in Information Technology I felt it was now time to go out as well and look for employment like any one else.

It was one hot afternoon coming from Mathare North to city centre headed Equity Bank Community Branch at the end of Haile Selassie Avenue. As a fresh graduate I did not have a lot of money and that meant spending the meager resources with prudence. Every coin mattered a great deal.

To minimise my expenditure for that day I decided to walk from city center towards ‘community’. I was smartly dressed with a well iron shirt, trouser and a tie that seemed to suggest I was employable. I carried a document folder which added to an outside confidence that I have been to school and if anyone hired me they will not be disappointed whatsoever. 

That confidence would be put to test in few hours.

As I walked up the hill towards Equity Bank I saw two young men walking down to my direction. As they approached me I could hear they were speaking in Kimeru.  Suddenly they stopped and seemed stranded. Reaching where they were they stopped me and asked if I could help.  No bother at all I thought to myself and stopped to listen to their woes. I heard them asking each other, which was Jubilee House. The hill on Haile Selassie Avenue offers a panoramic view of Nairobi City. It is possible to identify many buildings from that position and perhaps they thought it would be a good starting point to engage me.

The building in question was relatively shorter building which was hidden beyond so many others. Their problem was that they had won a lottery of Ksh. 200,000 and they need to locate the building in which the offices to claim the prizes were housed. The building was Jubilee House.

The two boys were dressed rough, unpolished shoes and their chests were both half open. They both chewed khat and hardly spoke any English word. Their Swahili was broken and their accent heavily influenced by their Meru language.  When they opened their mouth to talk green stuff would be coming from their mouth flying all over the place. What a scene! Quite disgusting!

I was later to learn it was a show to make me believe that they were country folks and vulnerable and that they did not know their way round the busy city.

“We come from Meru”, one said, “and we have won a lottery worth Ksh. 200,000 but a traffic police officer attempted to steal it from us when we asked him the way we could claim it, so we ran away from him”, the second fellow added. “We are wondering whether we can trust you to direct us to the place”, the first gentleman went on in a well rehearsed style.

Anytime anyone has seemed to question my trust I have come out ‘ferociously‘ to defend myself against anything that would put that to doubt. 

To them they had half won because I was going to make sure they got help within the shortest time possible because the normal office working hours was coming to an end.

With pity I looked at the helpless boys and told them I needed to drop my CV and I was to join them shortly. Before I could finish my statement one of them intercepted and said they are going to walk up with me. “Don’t worry we will be patient with you, in fact we ready to walk you there”, he added.

All of us went in and I dropped my CV and hurriedly went out to sort their problem.  I did not want anything that would hinder me doing what I thought was right thing to do-help the strangers! Down we walked towards city center. On the way they started telling me how good I was and suspected I was a Christian-to my delight. “Christians are good people; they will always go out of their way to help a friend in need.” Oh yeah- affirmatively I answered.

Just few meters to the building I met a friend who I had not seen for years but we were running out of time so we just said hey and each went different ways. 

I could see the building was getting closer and closer so I showed them but they were not going to let me go yet! With skills and persuasion they asked me to go and claim the money for them. They made the promise that they would give me part of the reward and a payment for helping them out to which I rejected. 

I told them that if I was going to help them, it was going to be for free. Well- to do so they asked me to leave some sort of security with them as an assurance that I was going back. I offered my document folder which they flipped through. One gentleman looked up and said, “you are highly educated and it would be good if you kept your documents.” I had a phone in my pocket so I offered it to them because I wanted to finish the whole business as quickly as possible and go home.

We agreed that I would meet them at the same point after receiving the cash prize. Up I went, right into the lottery office. I forwarded the lottery card and said I was there to claim the prize. Looking at the amount the gentleman asked me where I bought it and like I had been told by the boys I told him Nanyuki.

Please go and bring whoever sold the card to you. Disappointed I walked out to let the two young men know. As I walked out of the building and turned right I could not see the boys where I had left them. 

After looking around and not finding them I decided to call my phone through a public booth. When my call was transferred to the answering machine I felt a cold chill run through my body.Yes I had been conned! Jackson I know I have never told you but that is how I lost the phone you had given me as a gift!!