Kenyan authorities seek to prosecute Humphrey Kariuki for tax evasion

Kenya’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji has granted the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) a go-ahead to probe embattled businessman Humphrey Kariuki in a KSh 41-billion ($379.81 million) tax evasion case.

Alongside other persons, Kariuki was accused of failing to pay KSh 17,782,553,085 ($164.73 million) in taxes to the KRA from January to December 2016.

The DPP also said that he omitted KSh 832,048, 543 in VAT for the alcoholic beverages manufacturer company, Africa Spirits Limited (ASL), for the given period.

On April 16, the announcement was made after the DPP combined two tax evasion cases against ASL, Tuko reported. The DPP reduced the number of charges from 19 to 11 in the new case filed before Milimani Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi.

In August 2019, Kenyan Police hunted Kariuki following a DPP order to arrest him over the Ksh41-billion tax evasion scheme and the sale of substandard alcohol. Kenya Confidential reported that the DPP had sufficient evidence to charge the suspects for owning unaccustomed goods, counterfeit excise stamps, tax evasion and fraud. The charges amounted to more than Ksh41 billion at his alcohol plant in Thika.

In the past three decades, Kariuki has established a large business conglomerate. He is also the five-star Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club and the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy and Animal Orphanage.

His other businesses include The Janus Continental Group, The Hub (Karen), Africa Spirits, Dalbit Petroleum and Great Lakes Africa Energy, a U.K-based company that is a power project developer and operator in Southern Africa.