Police fail to pin Zzimwe
Dec 31, 2003
INVESTIGATIONS into the sh10b financial swindle from the Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya, involving Kampala businessman Andrew Kasagga Zzimwe, have run into difficulty.
By Steven Candia
INVESTIGATIONS into the sh10b financial swindle from the Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya, involving Kampala businessman Andrew Kasagga Zzimwe, have run into difficulty.
The director of the Criminal Investigation Directorate, Elizabeth Kuteesa, said recently that further investigations into the financial swindle, at the centre of which were two Congolese conmen, had been bogged down by lack of a proper Police force in the eastern part of the DRCongo and lack of a money laundering law in Uganda.
The Congolese had targeted $5m but managed to head off with $1m in the scam in which money was wired by swift transfer from the Kenyan bank to three banks in Uganda.
Police in October interrogated and seized travel documents of Kasagga, the owner of Zzimwe Hardware and Construction Company, Kampala lawyer Paul Kalemera and Cedric Nsamba, the manager of Gold Finger Forex Bureau, over alleged involvement in the cross-border fraud.
Their files were dispatched to the Director of Public Prosecutions but were bounced back to Police due to lack of substantive evidence implicating them in the scam.
“We are yet to trace all the persons who were allegedly involved but the Congolese are still a problem to us. The current situation in the DRCongo is not favourable to our investigations,†Kuteesa said.
“Had it been in the older days, we would have written a letter and dispatched a team to the DRCongo to continue with the investigations but there is no police force to liaise with,†she said.
INVESTIGATIONS into the sh10b financial swindle from the Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya, involving Kampala businessman Andrew Kasagga Zzimwe, have run into difficulty.
The director of the Criminal Investigation Directorate, Elizabeth Kuteesa, said recently that further investigations into the financial swindle, at the centre of which were two Congolese conmen, had been bogged down by lack of a proper Police force in the eastern part of the DRCongo and lack of a money laundering law in Uganda.
The Congolese had targeted $5m but managed to head off with $1m in the scam in which money was wired by swift transfer from the Kenyan bank to three banks in Uganda.
Police in October interrogated and seized travel documents of Kasagga, the owner of Zzimwe Hardware and Construction Company, Kampala lawyer Paul Kalemera and Cedric Nsamba, the manager of Gold Finger Forex Bureau, over alleged involvement in the cross-border fraud.
Their files were dispatched to the Director of Public Prosecutions but were bounced back to Police due to lack of substantive evidence implicating them in the scam.
“We are yet to trace all the persons who were allegedly involved but the Congolese are still a problem to us. The current situation in the DRCongo is not favourable to our investigations,†Kuteesa said.
“Had it been in the older days, we would have written a letter and dispatched a team to the DRCongo to continue with the investigations but there is no police force to liaise with,†she said.