By Eddah Waithaka
An explosive investigation has revealed that corrupt Kenyan government officials have embedded themselves into a vast East African human trafficking network, defrauding citizens with false promises of U.S. visas and green cards.
A joint probe by Kenya’s KTN News and The Standard Newspaper exposed a scheme where officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Sports siphoned between $15,000 and $20,000 from at least 15 ordinary Kenyans.
The officials fraudulently listed the citizens as government delegates to a major 2023 United Nations forum in New York to secure their visas.
The criminals used a fake company, the Diplomatic Executive Service Network (DESNET), to lend an air of legitimacy.
Documents show DESNET even petitioned the U.S. Embassy for a visa for a woman named Monica Mumbi Njenga, falsely claiming she was an official attending a UN youth forum. Investigators found Njenga actually worked at a hair salon outside Nairobi.
She remains at large after 12 suspects were arrested last June.”The officials promised these people visas and green cards, exploiting their dreams for a better life,” said journalist Francis Odee, who led the investigation.
An official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a secret recording, admitted to endorsing DESNET but did not confess to specific crimes. The Ministry of Sports did not respond to the findings.
The investigation cleared the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi of any involvement.This Kenyan scandal mirrors a nearly identical fraud uncovered in Somalia.
There, the Italian Embassy in Mogadishu recently rejected 70 fraudulent visa applications, all bearing the official signature of the Somali Foreign Ministry’s permanent secretary.
The cases expose how cross-border trafficking rings are actively co-opting government machinery across East Africa, turning state institutions into tools for a brutal trade that exploits citizens and undermines international security.
