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Royal Media Services Editorial Director Linus Kaikai, on Thursday, August 25, recounted a curious encounter with an audacious scam artist who had posed as prominent Cabinet Secretaries.
Speaking during Citizen TV’s News Gang show which he hosts, Kaikai said the story started with a phone call on Sunday, in which the scammer identified himself as a serving Cabinet Secretary well-known to him.
The journalist noted the scammer’s poor attempt at imitating the supposed CS’ voice, but Kaikai chose to carry on with the phone call.
As the conversation progressed, the caller ingeniously handed over the phone to another individual purportedly the Prime Cabinet Secretary.
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Royal Media Services Director of Innovation and Strategy Linus Kaikai in studio
“I played along and pretended surprised and honoured by the call, and this invited the caller to upgrade my ticket; he promptly passed the phone supposedly to the Prime Cabinet Secretary, who despite doing a poor job of imitating Musalia Mudavadi’s voice, proceeded to engage in a conversation of stately niceties,” Kaikai recalled.
Despite the strange situation, Linus kept pretending to believe them, thinking that maybe they would even pretend to be the Deputy President or the President. But then things got even weirder.
The fake Cabinet Secretary said there was a family emergency and they needed money for a cousin’s funeral. His accomplice who was impersonating the prime CS, said they had to catch a flight to Mombasa.
“I played along and promised that my bodyguard will call him shortly and deliver the money in cash,” Kaikai said.
Linus decided to have some fun and called a trustworthy police officer to help. He explained everything to the officer, who agreed to act as his bodyguard and call the fake Cabinet Secretary.
In a short time, the officer was able to trace the calls and revealed to Kaikai that the scammers were not in Nairobi.
“So when the supposedly bereaved (fake) Cabinet Secretary called to follow up on my funeral donation, I asked him, ‘eero, habari ya Mulot? He retorted ‘kwenda huko’ and immediately disconnected the call, bringing our entertainment to an end,” Kaikai shared.
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Citizen TV's Linus Kaikai
After this bizarre experience, Linus started thinking about all the other scams happening in Kenya and wondered how many people fall for these scams.
He expressed concern that scamming was becoming a normal thing in Kenya and drew comparisons with the Uasin Gishu County Government’s botched student airlift scandal that is being investigated.