A Nairobi court has ordered that personal bank accounts registered in the names of the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, Anne Atieno Amadi, as well as her son Brian Ochieng Amadi and two others, be frozen.
The court ordered there will be no withdrawals will be made without approval.
This was after Ms. Amadi was sued alongside her son Brian and others by a Dubai-based company that deals with gold.
This involves a fake gold scam in which, Bruton Gold Trading LLC claims that the suspects, acting on behalf of the law firm Amadi and Associates Advocates, illegally obtained over Sh89 million for gold that they never supplied.
The Dubai company claims that it was interested in buying gold from Kenya and was introduced by one of the suspects, Daniel Ndegwa Kangara.
They said that after an agreement between the parties, Kangara was to deliver gold which would then be exported to Dubai for sale.
Kangara has been named in a number of similar fake gold scams where unsuspecting buyers were swindled of money.
The firm says Sh71 million was sent to Ms. Amadi’s law firm, but that no gold was exported from Kenya to Dubai.
The complaint said investigations by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) revealed that she is the registered proprietor of Amadi and Associates Advocates.
They also allege that the probe disclosed that the account where the money was deposited was also opened by Ms. Amadi after joining the Judiciary.
The funds received by the firm were withdrawn in cash by Ms. Amadi’s son and two others without adequate documentation as required by the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act, the complainant says.
The firm added Ms. Amadi later called them seeking to clear the sum within six months, to which they declined as there was no security performance on the part of the defendants.
Brian has also been mentioned in past fake gold scams.
Amadi is due to leave the position by the end of this year.
This comes in the wake of increased cases of fake gold scams amid police operations to address them.
Director of Criminal Investigations is investigating dozens of such complaints and some of them are in court.
