American tycoon Jim Renfro has raised a red flag after unknown persons forged a letter with his company name and signature, as they planned to swindle a huge amount of gold from Kenya.
Renfro accused three other American nationals with business interest in Kenya, Thomas More Talashek, Scott Umstead and Matteo Gruelle for forgery and false claims and plan to sue them for Sh 2.6 billion (20 million USD).
The trio had written a forged contract meant to purchase two tonnes of gold from Kenya using Renfro’s company name and forged his signature, company seal and company stamp, but Renfro got a wind of what was happening in good time to thwart the expensive deal.
In a letter addressed to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations Kenya Amin Mohamed Ibrahim, dated March 16, 2023, Renfro has called for alertness over the issue and urged the crime busters to crack the web and apprehend the culprits.
“I the undersigned Mr Jim Renfro, am the managing member of Lovcanaries LLC, a limited liability company based in Dallas, Texas USA. I hereby state that the attached documents are forged and fake. The said documents presented by Cavallino Capital Holdings LLC, Mr Thomas More Talashek, Scott Umstead, Matteo A. Gruelle and others, are pure forgery and do not present my will and intentions whatsoever, regarding my business in Kenya and by extension East Africa. I am in the process of initiating legal actions against their acts in the United States of America,” Renfro’s letter to the DCI boss read.
Similar cases have been on the rise in Kenya. Just last month, Police in Nairobi have arrested 10 suspects, among them eight Kenyans and two foreign nationals, for allegedly defrauding two American citizens USD 534,000 (Sh.67.3 million).
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), in a statement released on Saturday, noted that two firearms and over 470 rounds of ammunition were also recovered during the operation.
According to the DCI, the suspects allegedly defrauded Ms. Marjorie R. Grant – who is based in Los Angeles, California – of the aforementioned amount in a fake gold scam deal.
