This archive report was first published on 15 July 2019.
July 15, 2019
A Ukrainian national is fighting for justice after being conned Sh132 million in a fake gold scam in Kampala, Uganda.
Kovalenko Hennadii, a Ukrainian national, lost almost Sh132 million to fake gold scammers in the heart of Kampala in October 2016.
He was introduced to a gold dealer from the Democratic Republic of Congo who had 350kg gold nuggets and agreed to sell them at Sh3,088,500 ($30,000) per kilogramme.
They signed a contract and made arrangements to ship the gold to Dubai, but when they arrived, they found no 'consignment'. Hennadii returned to Uganda, but the dealer suggested shipping the gold through Kenya, claiming it was an honest country.
He brought Hennadii to a company in Westland, Nairobi, where he met two managers who claimed to have a licence to export gold and could make all the necessary documents for shipping to Dubai.
They prepared an invoice of Sh59,132,500 ($591,325) but Hennadii had run out of money and had to return to Ukraine to look for an investor.
He came back to Nairobi in April 2018 with an investor, Vladimir Bodnarchuk, and signed a contract with the company the next day.
They were given 40kg of gold as collateral and it was kept under mutual custody of Vladimir Bodnarchuk and Afrisolutions.
However, the company failed to ship the gold, and Hennadii was asked to pay Sh13,600,000 ($136,000) for an ICGRL certificate, which he did, but the company still failed to ship the gold.
They returned to Ukraine at the end of August 2018 and reported the matter to the DCI headquarters in January 2019, but the case is still ongoing at a Milimani court.
