How Nyeri girl built Sh200 million prostitution company in London
From rags to riches!
It is a county that has given birth to many of Kenya’s heroes and heroines including President Mwai Kibaki, politician JM Kariuki, Dedan Kimathi, Nobel Prize laureate Wangari Mathai, among others.
In 1973, a little-known village in Kieni gave the world one of the most notorious pimps around the globe – Anne Wangeci O'Brien.
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Her life story serves as a lesson on the determined Kenyan spirit as well as the downside of crime and unethical business behaviour that reflects on all facets of Kenyan society.
Her squatter parents moved from Nyeri to Nakuru when she was still a young girl. She later attended Menengai High School where she completed her O-levels.
Anne had a short stint as a market stall trader before migrating to the United Kingdom in unclear circumstances where she reportedly granted political asylum from ethnic clashes.
When she landed in the UK in 1997, she got married to Peter O'Brien whom she later divorced. To get an income, she did not open a market stall but rather opted for the dark world of prostitution.
In less than ten years, the Kenyan girl born to squatter parents was living the luxurious life at one of London’s most expensive neighbourhoods.
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Her illegal company was managing 40 prostitutes who were paying thousands of pounds into 27 bank accounts each week.
She also had several websites where she advertised her sex menu that featured girls from around the world including Thailand, Brazil and Sweden.
The illegal services began at Sh40,000.
So lucrative was the trade that Anne purchased a house in Kensington, West London where her neighbours were billionaires and members of the Royal family.
The house was estimated to be worth Sh180 million as of 2005 when she was first convicted of prostitution-related charges.
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The Kensington house was used by her call girls while she lived at a top-floor penthouse where she lived and a sex dungeon in Upper Berkley Street, near Harrods -a department store frequented by celebrities.
As her empire expanded, she also bought her mother two matatus christened Dream Girl – the same name given to her escort agency.
After her first conviction in 2005, her mother Veronica Wangare who was living in Nakuru, defended her and asked the then Narc government to protect her.
"I and my daughter are Christians and we cannot entertain the kind of work that she has been accused of doing," Wangare said at the time, claiming her daughter was running a multi-million salon business.
The case resulted in her first conviction where she was found guilty of three counts of controlling prostitution but released with a 180-community punishment order and fined Sh80 million.
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The second conviction on Wednesday will see her serve ten years in jail alongside her current husband Martin Carroll and her elder sister Elizabeth Muya.
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