Game over: It’s dead end for forgers as DCI gets forensic lab

For the longest time, Nairobi’s River Road has maintained notoriety for being the headquarters of forgers of vital personal documents.

Nothing is impossible along River Road. From a simple bus ticket to the pricey title deed; a person looking for such fake papers won’t leave the place disappointed.

Along River Road, anything under the sun regarding matters forgery and alteration of documents, and mimicking of handwritings and signatures is possible.

This is the place where academic certificates, licenses, logbooks, visas, passports, wills, agreements, Identification Cards, birth and death certificates, cheques, KRA revenue stamps, certificate of incorporation and allotment letters among other papers, are bought.

Occasional police raids have not stopped the forgery syndicates from operating thanks to the high demand by desperate individuals trooping to River Road in search of fake documents to enable them to commit fraud, gain favour or an advantage over others.

Across the country, police are overwhelmed with cases of forged documents, according to a retired police examiner, who says the most falsified papers are title deeds, green cards, wills and school certificates.

To ease the pressure and stymie forgery rackets, there is a need to position at least two well-trained document examiners of high integrity in all the 47 counties, says the former police examiner.

People secure jobs using forged papers, banks lose money via fake cheques, falsified titles are used to steal land, duplicate logbooks facilitate motor vehicle theft, faked death certificates are used to make compensation from insurance firms while bogus ID cards are given to foreigners.

And police have been unable to break this fraud that has left many victims minus their hard-earned wealth. Some have sunk into depression while others shuttle in courtrooms in search of justice.

Last November, a British engineer stunned a court when he revealed that two Kenyan businessmen faked a death certificate and grabbed his land in Nairobi valued at Sh200 million.

The duo (names withheld) allegedly faked the death of Pavel Curzon and proceeded to take over his properties in Kileleshwa and along Ngong Road.

Curzon told the court that the accused persons prepared a death certificate, which they used to change registration ownership of his parcels of land in 2006. The fraudulent transaction was executed while Curzon was away in London attending to his sick wife.

“They timed while I was away in the UK and invaded my home, chased away the domestic workers, stole my properties and put up the land for sale,” the Briton told the court.

Two years ago, a Canada-based woman finally got back her prime piece of land in Loresho following a protracted legal tussle with a businessman, who claimed ownership of the same parcel.

Maria Rosita Cardozo recovered the land after the Environment and Land Court established she and her late husband, Victor Antony Cardozo, were victims of land cartels that had almost succeeded in defrauding her.

The court heard that the businessman colluded with rogue officials at the Lands ministry to forge the title deed and other documents, which they used to register the multi-million shilling property in their name.

The two incidences highlight how the forgery vice is deep-rooted and continues to flourish even when arrests and prosecutions are made.

The schemers, according to experts, exploit police's lack of investigative capacity to produce fake documents to willing collaborators in the game.

Hard statistics on forged documents are hard to come by from concerned authorities like police and courts. But based on reports and trends, cases of fake documents are many.

“Cases of forged documents are rampant, and the situation is made worse by the fact that there are no adequate examiners in the country where about 1,000 claims of forgery are reported on a single day,” said the ex-cop who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But with the expected operationalisation of National Forensic Laboratory, it might not be business as usual for the fraudsters, and the cases might go down depending on how detectives utilise the laboratory.

The ultra-modern laboratory comprises the physical structure equipped with 10 specialised scientific state-of-the-art laboratories that complement each other combing through evidence and exhibits.

The laboratories include forensic fingerprint identification, forensic document examination, forensic ballistics, forensic chemistry, forensic biology, forensic imaging and acoustics, forensic evidence management, forensic crime scene investigations, forensic digital, and the forensic bomb and hazardous materials.