Detectives have arrested six suspects linked to a series of alteration of land documents in an operation in Ngara, Nairobi.
The team from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations led by the officer commanding land fraud investigations unit Wilheim Kimutai made the arrests after a tip off.
The suspects are part of a land cartel defrauding Kenyans of their lands by changing ownership in both the physical files and the digital platform using fake documents.
A number of documents were also recovered in the operation.
Kimutai said the six were found printing fake land documents in their office at Anpemu House.
"They receive instructions from different clients among them rogue brokers and rogue ministry of land officials who direct them to print fake documents and append signatures and stamps of ministry officials without their knowledge," indicated Kimutai.
Among the items confiscated in the Ngara office included four mobile phones, two type writers, four printers, scanners, 11 incomplete certificate of titles and fifteen deed plans.
Also seized during the operation were two survey plans, a CPU, about 1,000 unprinted title deeds, 17 letters of allotments, assorted computation files, one logbook, one smart driving licence and about 100 different date codes.
Kimutai said a search was also conducted at the residence of one of the suspects and several items were confiscated including four stamps belonging to the ministry of lands officials, registry index maps for Nairobi block 118 land, 11 allotment letters, several land administration leases and nine deed plans.
Their modus operandi according to Kimutai is that the brokers first source for fraudulent jobs from different clients for ingestion into the manual and digital registries at the ministry of lands.
The most targeted parcels include prime undeveloped parcels owned by foreigners, the elderly and the dead.
Once the brokers have the targeted parcels at hand, they then engage the suspects to prepare and print fake land documents.
Thereafter the brokers engage some rogue ministry staff to insert the fake documents into the physical files and once that is done they upload the fake documents into the ardhi sasa platform.
While this process is ongoing, the brokers have already identified a buyer and once the fake documents are uploaded to the ardhi sasa platform, the buyer can conduct a search and by then ownership will have changed.
In cases where the parcel is not for immediate sale, the brokers transfer the parcels to themselves using proxy individuals or proxy companies.
These brokers are well known within the Ministry of lands with one of them fond of name dropping as a way of commanding respect within the ministry, Kimutai said.
During the arrest one of the suspects swallowed his memory card to conceal evidence. Another suspect fled the scene but left his documents and phone.
Officers from the Scene of Crime Unit processed all the scenes and the suspects later processed at the DCI headquarters.
The six suspects are being held at Gigiri, Parkalnds and Muthaiga police stations awaiting presentation in court on Monday.