Kenya court rejects bid to seize Sh36 million after evidence falls short

An allegation of large cash withdrawals unravelled when the lawyer defending it conceded that the description was wrong. That admission featured in a Kenyan Court of Appeal decision rejecting an attempt to seize $274,369, or about Sh36 million, from EIS Afrika Group Limited’s I&M Bank account, according to Capital FM Kenya Business (direct). The dispute centred on whether money moving through the company’s Kenyan account was linked to crime or intended to pay for vehicles and equipment.

A three-judge panel dismissed the Assets Recovery Agency’s appeal and left the earlier High Court ruling intact. Both courts found the agency’s evidence insufficient to support taking the money. The appeal court said ARA had not shown, on a balance of probabilities—meaning more likely than not—a direct connection between the funds and criminal activity. The ruling turned on what the agency could prove, rather than how suspicious the transactions appeared.

A border project and a frozen account

The dispute began after EIS Afrika received a $350,000 international wire transfer in March 2024. ARA suspected money laundering, the process of disguising money obtained through crime as legitimate funds. It froze the account and sought forfeiture, or legal seizure, of the remaining balance under Kenya’s Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act. The $274,369 at issue was the amount the agency sought to take, not the full incoming transfer.

EIS Afrika offered a different account of the transaction. The company, which has an affiliate in Burundi, said it had secured a $5.03 million World Bank-funded contract to build and install facilities at the Kavimvira Border Post. It said the Kenyan account was being used to buy vehicles and equipment from Dubai because Burundi’s tight foreign-exchange and import restrictions complicated those purchases. Tender papers, invoices and correspondence were submitted to support that explanation.

The High Court rejected ARA’s case in June 2025, finding that the allegations lacked concrete supporting evidence. It also found that bank records did not support some of the agency’s claims, including the assertion that substantial amounts had been withdrawn in cash. ARA then challenged that decision, taking the dispute over the company’s remaining funds to the Court of Appeal.

Suspicion was not enough

The weaknesses in the evidence remained central on appeal. Asked to substantiate the investigator’s account of large cash withdrawals, ARA’s lawyer acknowledged that the description was incorrect. The appellate judges also identified reliance on an email address that had not been verified and a cyber-forensic report—an examination of digital evidence—that had not been authenticated.

ARA’s lawyer described the incorrect cash-withdrawal claim as “a slip of our side.”

The court further noted that ARA had not checked the company’s explanation independently with either the World Bank or the Burundi Embassy. It stressed that suspicion, high-value transactions and unusual cross-border money movements could not, by themselves, establish that the money came from crime.

The appeal’s dismissal leaves the High Court decision standing. The key point to watch in any further development is the evidence connecting the funds to criminal conduct: in this case, the courts found that connection had not been established.