Jersey seizes £3.6m in Kenyan bribery case

Friday 26 February 2016

A Jersey registered company has pleaded guilty to four counts of money laundering in a case involving a corrupt Kenyan public official who hid millions of pounds in the Island.

This week the Royal Court confiscated £3.6 million from Windward Trading Ltd, effectively stripping the company of all of its assets. That money will now be held in a 'confiscation fund', pending discussions about sending it back to Kenya.

Windward admitted to laundering the proceeds of corruption between 29 July 1999 and 19 October 2001. The company's beneficial owner, Samuel Gichuru, was also the Chief Executive of Kenya Power and Lightning Company (KPLC), the Kenyan government’s electricity utility company, from November 1984 to February 2003. 

The Court heard that KPLC had awarded contracts to a number of engineering and energy companies worldwide, who had all made payments to Windward.

In his Prosecution conclusions, the Island's former Solicitor General, Howard Sharp QC said:

"Windward Trading received and held the proceeds of criminal conduct perpetrated by its controlling mind and beneficial owner, Samuel Gichuru. The company knowingly enabled Gichuru to obtain substantial bribes paid to Gichuru while he held public office in Kenya. The company played a vital role without which corruption on a grand scale is impossible: money laundering. Gichuru...accepted bribes from foreign businesses that contracted with KPLC during his term of office and hid them in Jersey."

"Windward served as a bank account. It...formed a barrier between the foreign contractors that paid the bribes and the personal accounts of Gichuru and others who benefited from the corrupt payments."

Following this week's conviction, the Law Officer's Department issued a statement saying:

"The conviction of Windward is the result of a ground breaking international investigation that was conducted by the Jersey Law Officers’ Department under the supervision of the former Solicitor General, Howard Sharp QC. The evidence in this money laundering case is extensive and the investigation took many years to complete. Documents and witness evidence were secured by legal assistance from twelve jurisdictions in order to prove complex cross border money laundering techniques."

The Attorney General, Robert MacRae QC, added: “This is a very important case, demonstrating Jersey’s commitment to combatting money-laundering and tackling international corruption. I look forward to discussions with the Kenyan authorities on an asset sharing agreement in order to repatriate the confiscated funds to Kenya in an appropriate manner."

Mr Gichuru had total control of Windward between 1999 and 2001 - which is the period the charges relate to. After that time, control of the company was taken back by other Directors, who filed a Suspicious Activity Report in 2002 to the States Police, when they couldn't discover where the company's assets had come from. That report led to the prosecution which concluded this week. Those Directors are not accused of any criminality or other wrongdoing, and had no involvement in the events relating to the eventual confiscation of the funds.  

Extradition proceedings of Samuel Gichuru, along with Chrysanthus Okemo, the former Kenyan Energy Minister, from Kenya to face money laundering charges in Jersey in connection with Windward’s activities are still ongoing.