Kenya: Married Woman Who Faked Kidnapping Smoked Out From Hideout With Taxi Driver

Nairobi — A married woman who disappeared Friday and claimed to have been kidnapped has been arrested by detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).

Detectives also arrested her accomplice, a taxi driver with whom she executed the plot and the driver’s girlfriend.

Jane Wairimu disappeared on Friday, September 17, and later called her husband Brian Mutuku alleging she had been kidnapped by unknown people who were demanding Sh200,000 as ransom.

“That night as he was pondering his next move, a distraught Mutuku received a call from his wife who sounded panic stricken, claiming to have been kidnapped by unknown people who were demanding Sh200,000 as ransom,” DCI tweeted.

“She claimed to have been kidnapped as she was walking along Loita street in Nairobi’s central business district. The worried husband immediately filed a missing person’s report at DCI Embakasi.”

Wairimu’s family and the husband raised Sh17,000 and sent it to the alleged kidnappers but an investigation established that the money was being sent to the taxi driver who was with Wairimu in a house in Malaa, Machakos County.

The family raised an additional Sh40,000 which was withdrawn in Mtito-Andei, Makueni, by the taxi driver having further traveled with Wairimu from their initial hideout in Machakos.

DCI’s Special Service Unit and Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau established that the alleged kidnapper identified as Richard Mogire had promised his 21-year-old girlfriend, a student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, a weekend outing.

“How Mogire convinced his campus girl to hang on and play ball yet she wasn’t part of the initial plan, still remains a puzzle,” DCI said.

Wairimu told detectives that she had forced her disappearance to get away from creditors who were on her neck even as Mogire and her 21-year-old girlfriend were taken picked up for questioning on the incident.