Ekeza Sacco Society founder David Kariuki Ngare alias Gakuyo yesterday presented himself to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters along Kiambu Road.
The Ministry of Trade filed the complaint at the DCI headquarters Thursday afternoon, setting the stage for investigations into the scandal affecting 78,000 members of the savings and credit cooperative society (sacco).
Gakuyo presented himself at the DCI headquarters Thursday, a day after Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i instructed the police to speed up arrests of officials of the troubled sacco where the televangelist is the chairman.
An audit by the Commissioner of Co-operatives’ office linked Gakuyo to irregular withdrawals of more than Sh1 billion from the sacco, part of which he used to buy a palatial residence at the leafy Nyari estate and to finance his real estate firm.
The audit reckons that an estimated Sh1.5 billion was unlawfully transferred to the accounts of the preacher, Gakuyo Real Estate, where he is the managing director and his wife Hannah Wachu a co-director, lawyers and vendors of land sold to his company.
Some of the monies were withdrawn through cash using the sacco’s vice-chairman James Wanjuu and secretary-cum-CEO Gladys Muriithi “for activities of Gakuyo Real Estate and its directors” under the preacher’s instructions.
Approximately Sh1.419 billion was irregularly transferred from the sacco’s Equity Bank account — Sh88,138,375 in 2015, Sh850,463,877 in 2016, Sh454,097,630 in 2017 and Sh27,002,220 last year.