CAPTION: Megascope Limited CEO Richard Ngatia’s wife Diana - during this period when Ngatia’s company was openly making a killing off fleecing the government, Diana continued to showcase her luxurious and glamorous lifestyle on the inter-webs The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) on Tuesday announced that it has started cracking down on Kenyans who display their fabulous lifestyle online.
Speaking to a distinguished local business magazine, KRA Commissioner General Githii Mburu told revealed that the agency has officers in place monitoring social media posts by high-spending citizen who are often not afraid of showing off their flamboyant and wealthy lifestyles.
He went on to explain that KRA will be targeting a specific group of netizens who love to post images of their houses, cars and other expensive toys they own. “ In the social media, we have some people posting some nice things. You would see some posting nice houses, cars, taking their families to nice places and so on" he said.
Mburu further diclosed that the taxman has acquired special gadgets which have been handed out to respective social media monitoring teams.
Some of the most obvious give aways when investigating such people, he noted, is motor vehicle registration numbers which most don't even bother to conceal. " Here, we are not sleeping, when we see those, we see taxes. We have our officers looking, they have gadgets. The key in very quickly (the number plate) to check. We are working exceptionally hard,” Mburu disclosed.
This latest tactic by KRA was reportedly inspired by sudden increase in the increase in the number of high-end cars on the road.
The agency has made it clear that it is keen to make sure that every Kenyan gives to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.
This means that next time you are overtaking, you could be passing a KRA officer running a search on your number plate.
Mburu said they are also using electricity and water bills, import data, vehicle registration details as well as documents from Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) to track down flying tax cheats. “We know you can build a house from loans. But that loan must be repaid from somewhere. We are following all those applying for meters,” he added.
Mburu says these are some of the measures that he hopes will continue to contributed to the success of KRA in terms of meeting its revenue targets for the first time in more than 10 years.
With this new system in place, many of the country's most exuberant personalities (some of whom we have covered in the past) are now at great risk of being nabbed by this wide net.
In one story in which we exposed the insperable love between Kenya's super-rich and Instagram, a wife of a prominent figure mentioned in last year's Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA) scandal showed off her husband's massive wealth through Instagram and TikTok videos. READ: Richard Ngatia’s Exuberant Wife Shows Off Expensive Accessories Amidst KEMSA Scandal The wife to Megascope Healthcare Ltd CEO Richard Ngatia, who was pointed out as one of the people that made a killing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya, posted a viral video in which she showed off her costly Louis Vuitton designer collection that hundreds expensive handbags, shoes and other accessories.
Just a few days after we published the story, Ms Diana Ngatia deleted all her social media profiles.
Could the intensification of investigations into KEMSA billionaires have scared the Ngatia’s into quitting social media? Maybe.
It is common knowledge that in the modern world, basic social engineering can harvest huge chunks of information online accounts of these fraudulent personalities like in the case of flamboyant Nigerian Instagram star “Hushpuppi”, where information extracted from social media aided the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in trailing his dirty money.
Hushpuppi’s Instagram account, which was followed by 2.4 million people at the time, was filled with hundreds of pictures of him posing with luxury cars, designer clothes and private jets.
The posts helped FBI detectives confirm Hushpuppi’s true identity, his whereabouts, and to connect him to conversations discussing the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Even more interesting is that Ms Diana Ngatia or "DumbBitchDiana" as she called herself online, fled the platform just after parliament had ordered deeper investigations into the persons involved in the KEMSA heist. READ: Richard Ngatia’s Exuberant Wife Deletes Instagram Account As Investigations Into KEMSA Scandal Continue Will KRA's new tactic be equally implemented to capture crony capitalists like her husband or will they only misuse it to harass the young Kenyan population in an attempt to punish them into submission? Only time will tell.