More details have now emerged of how a man masquerading as a city lawyer beat the system to practice unnoticed.
In a detailed account, the Law Society of Kenya said it all started with an identity theft.
LSK said the man falsely claimed to be an advocate by impersonating a genuine advocate whose practice status was inactive.
The advocate was admitted to the bar late last year but had not applied for a practice certificate because he was working at the office of the Attorney General.
Things started going south for the alleged quack lawyer last month, after the lawyer whose identity he had stolen wanted to activate his practice certificate but could not access his account on the LSK portal.
He raised the matter with the society’s ICT department who followed up on the matter.
“He promptly alerted the ICT personnel at the Secretariat vide an email on the September 28, 2023, who upon inquiry noted that the details in the system, more particularly his email address, did not belong to him hence the reason why he could not access his membership portal,” LSK said.
The issue was resolved and an investigation opened into the matter and that is when it was discovered that the fake lawyer had accessed the LSK account.
He allegedly used an international fraud scheme known as Business Email Compromise (BEC) where he identified a genuine advocate status as being inactive.
He then made contact with the LSK secretariat to make an application for payment of his ‘Practicing Certificate’ but couldn’t because his email credentials were a mismatch.
“Upon being allowed access to the account, he took control of the portal and changed his profile picture, the workplace and applied and paid for the practicing certificate,” LSK said.
LSK said the man’s payment did not go through because he was required to provide additional documentation.
“His application was not processed since he was required to provide documents including the certificate of business incorporation which is an additional security measure, which unless supplied and verified the application cannot be processed.”
LSK said in a statement on Friday that they have called on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to launch a manhunt for the masquerade’s accomplices and bring them to book.
The alleged fake lawyer was on Thursday detained by authorities on claims that he falsely presented himself as an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.
Reports indicate that the lawyer had battled 26 cases before High Court Judges, Magistrates and Court of Appeal Judges before his arrest, and he won all of them.
He was arrested by the Law Society of Kenya Nairobi Branch Rapid Action Team (RAT) over the claims of false pretence.
He was apprehended when RAT received public complaints about him.
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