Three Chinese deny offering Sh500,000 bribe in SGR probe

Three Chinese nationals were charged on Monday with offering a Sh500,000 bribe to an inspector of police and his team for favour in the investigation on fraud at the Mombasa terminus.

The three are employees of the China Roads and Bridges Corporation (CRBC) at the Mirini, Mombasa terminus of the standard gauge railway.

The three are Li Gen, who is in charge of transport; Li Xiaowu who is the security manager and Sun Xin, a staff member.

They were charged with the offence of giving a bribe, following consent by Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji.

The accused denied the charged before Mombasa Chief Magistrate Julius Nang’eya.

The prosecution opposed their release saying they were flight risks.

A suspected multi-million-shilling ticketing fraud has hit the Mombasa-Nairobi train service with detectives investigating a complex web that involves insiders skimming off a significant portion of revenue from each trip, the Nation can reveal.

On Friday, things took a dramatic turn when detectives of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission in Mombasa arrested the three Chinese nationals and their four Kenyan counterparts, all employees of the CRBC.

They were held at Port Police Station in Mombasa.

The Kenya Railways Corporation earlier directed the CRBC, the operator of Madaraka Express, to take action against employees found to have interfered with ticketing.

The action came after the Nation published a story detailing a multimillion-shilling ticketing fraud at the train service.

The complex web, according to the article, involves insiders skimming off a significant portion of revenue generated from every trip, with indications that Sh1 million is lost daily.