If there is one person who is currently over the moon on recent happenings as regards his company, that person would be Gideon Orovwiroro, the Chief Operating Officer of Kora, a pan-African fintech company headquartered in Canada, with offices in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
During the week, Kenya’s Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) dropped the fraud charges it had levelled against the payment infrastructure company. ARA is the Kenyan agency that identifies, traces, freezes, seizes, confiscates, and recovers proceeds of crime in the East African country. The agency filed documents at the High Court of Kenya at Nairobi Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Division withdrawing its suit in its entirety.
Similarly, another document issued by the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) earlier in the week cleared Kora of any wrongdoing in the ARA application. The DCI said it could not establish any case against the company after its investigations.
In July, when ARA began a clampdown on some of Nigeria’s Fintechs operating in the country, accusing them of money laundering and fraud, Kora was one of the companies on who ARA beamed its spotlight. It accused the company of money laundering and card fraud allegations.
The agency filed two separate suits, leading to the freezing of Kora’s account alongside those of Kandon Technologies Limited, another Nigerian fintech company. Both fintechs were alleged to be siphoning Sh6 billion ($51 million) into Kenya. As such, the court froze $249,990 (Sh29.5 million) in Kora’s Equity Bank account, and $126,841 (Sh15 million) in Kandon Technologies Ltd’s two UBA’s accounts until ARA was to complete its investigations within six months.
ARA also linked them with five other Nigerian companies and a Kenyan businessman. The companies are Flutterwave Ltd, Elivalat Fintech Ltd, Hupesi Solutions, Boxtrip Travels and Tours, Bagtrip Travels Ltd, Cruz Ride Auto Ltd, and businessman Simon Karanja—whose combined 62 bank accounts containing over Sh6 billion were frozen over similar allegations. But barely four months later, the case was concluded with Kora being in the clear.
It would be recalled that earlier in the year, ARA begun a clampdown on some of Nigeria’s Fintechs operating in their country. For over two months, it investigated a string of cash transfers from Nigeria without realising that they might hold the key to unlocking the whereabouts of Sh25 billion at the centre of the local and international money laundering rings.
In May, ARA, alongside Interpol, beamed its searchlight on Eghosasere Nehikhare, founder of Boltpay and CEO OF Multigate limited and Bukunmi Olufemi Demuren, founder and board chairman of Multigate Limited. The Fintech tycoons who allegedly have a history of using tax havens to avoid taxes were at the centre of investigations by the Assets Recovery Agency, Kenya and Interpol for a string of suspicious transfers of $221 million (N128 billion) from Nigeria in local currency, which is worth Kenya Sh25 billion.
Interpol sought to unravel the puzzle behind the laundered money, which was wired into Kenya from Nigeria between October and November 2020. Also, in July, Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payment technology company, with operations across thirty-three countries on the continent, was fingered in a money laundering investigation by ARA. The Central Bank of Kenya even issued a notice, instructing all commercial banks in the country not to engage with it as earlier reported by THEWILL.
While Flutterwave dismissed claims of financial improprieties insisting that Kenyan authorities were specifically targeting Nigerian Fintechs, some analysts expressed the opinion that the Kenyan Government was trying to use ARA to score cheap political points and mask allegations of corruption in the public service, with non-indigenous Fintechs as easy targets.
While they think the Fintechs may not be completely free of the fraud allegations, they also believe that the fintechs aren’t as guilty as charged, citing Kora’s exoneration as an example.
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