An international gold trader has told a Nairobi court how documents prepared inside a prominent law firm’s offices convinced him to transfer more than Sh65 million into what prosecutors now allege was part of a sophisticated fake gold scheme.
Testifying before Principal Magistrate P.K. Mutai at the Milimani Law Courts, Andrew Adel Gaballa, director of Dubai-based Sakina Commodities FZCO, said he met advocate Conrad Anangwe Maloba at Conrad Law Advocates LLP’s offices on the 15th floor of the Global Trade Centre.
According to Gaballa, he was presented with a Sales and Purchase Agreement for 600 kilograms of gold dore bars, a collateral management agreement, and a formal engagement letter appointing the law firm to manage the transaction and hold funds in trust.
Relying on the firm’s involvement, Gaballa authorised two SWIFT transfers from Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank totalling USD 505,000 (about Sh65.4 million). Of that amount, USD 10,000 was paid as legal fees while USD 495,000 was deposited into the firm’s trust account.
Gaballa says the gold never arrived.
Gold Deal Unravels
The alleged scheme began in Dubai in October 2025 when Gaballa was introduced to a man identifying himself as Marshall Morrison, who claimed to have access to Tanzanian gold. Morrison later introduced Kenyan facilitator Duncan Okonji Okaka, and the parties travelled to Mwanza, Tanzania, where they were shown what appeared to be active artisanal mining operations.
The agreement called for 600 kilograms of gold, with 10 kilograms stored in Nairobi as collateral while the remaining consignment was shipped to Dubai.
However, the deal soon changed. Gaballa said he was told war in the UAE had made direct delivery impossible and that the shipment would instead travel through Oman aboard a private jet, requiring additional payments. An insurance certificate from an unfamiliar company and cryptocurrency transactions also became part of the payment process before communication abruptly ceased.
Investigators later established that Nairobi Air Traffic Control had no record of the alleged private jet flight. The collateral gold has yet to undergo conclusive forensic testing, while the money remains unrecovered.
Okonji has since been charged with conspiracy to defraud and obtaining money by false pretences. He denies the charges and is out on bond.
A Second Foreign Investor, A Similar Trail
The Sakina case is not the only international fraud investigation linked to Conrad Law Advocates LLP.
In a separate case, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) alleges that USD 470,750 (about Sh60.8 million) paid by Talal Yousef Yousef Zaitoun, a Syrian-linked businessman associated with Swedish timber and machinery interests, was deposited into the same Ecobank trust account.
Investigators say Zaitoun was promised a lucrative Kenyan government tender to supply 500 Toyota Hiace ambulances worth approximately USD 36 million.
According to the DCI, he was picked up from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, accommodated at Nairobi’s Radisson Blu Arboretum and later escorted into Harambee House, where individuals posing as senior government officials allegedly demanded a three percent performance bond before the contract could proceed.
Seven suspects were arrested inside Harambee House in March 2026. Investigators stated that funds from the alleged scam had been channelled into Conrad Law Advocates LLP’s Ecobank account.
Legal Battles Continue
Detectives detained Maloba for two nights in April during investigations into the fake gold case, he was released without being charged.
He has since obtained conservatory orders from the High Court temporarily preventing the DCI and the Director of Public Prosecutions from arresting or prosecuting him in connection with the Sakina investigation. Similar court orders have also delayed plea-taking in the ambulance case.
Maloba maintains that his firm merely acted as an advocate holding client funds in trust and argues that the criminal investigations are being used to pressure him over what he describes as commercial disputes rather than fraud.
Questions Over a Growing Pattern
Beyond the two criminal investigations, Maloba’s firm has also featured in previous civil disputes involving client funds, professional undertakings and court-ordered payments.
Prosecutors argue that the firm’s trust account has become a recurring destination for money from unrelated foreign investors pursuing vastly different transactions.
The defence rejects that characterization, insisting that Conrad Law Advocates LLP performed only its professional obligations as legal counsel and denies any wrongdoing.
For investigators, however, the central question remains unchanged.
