On 30 June 2018, scrutiny intensified around KCB Bank Group after reports cited by The Sentry repeated allegations that the lender had been used to move money linked to South Sudan’s political and military elite.
The claims placed Joshua Nyamweya Oigara, then 45 and chief executive of KCB Bank, at the center of a controversy involving accusations of money laundering and the concealment of wealth in Kenya through real estate and other assets.
The Sentry had already raised similar concerns in 2016, saying Joshua Oigara and other bank executives were involved in laundering billions of shillings for South Sudanese elites and military commanders. In 2018, the same organization again named KCB among Kenyan banks it said were enabling money laundering that helped sustain abuses in South Sudan.
One of the figures identified in the reporting was General Gabriel Jok Riak, a senior South Sudan army commander. The report said he had been making transfers of hundreds of thousands of US dollars into a personal bank account in Kenya, even though his monthly salary was said to be below $3,000, or about $35,000 a year.
Riak commanded Sector One of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), covering Divisions 3, 4 and 5. He was under United Nations sanctions, with his assets frozen and travel restricted because of his role in the civil war.
According to The Sentry report, titled War Crimes Shouldn’t Pay, Riak had command authority over a 2015 offensive across three states that violated multiple ceasefires and led to the displacement of more than 100,000 people, alongside grave war crimes.
The report also said Human Rights Watch had gathered eyewitness accounts describing soldiers under Sector One as responsible for killings of elderly women, sexual violence, looting and destruction.
KCB Bank Group, which operates in six countries, was presented in the reporting as a major financial player in East Africa, making the allegations especially sensitive. The article also claimed that Kenyan mainstream media had often avoided the story because of fears over advertising revenue.
