Kenyan billionaire Vimal Shah says he was defrauded of $745,000

Vimal Shah told a Nairobi court on Monday, Sept. 14 that he transferred 102,437,500 shillings to a company he had never dealt with because a man he had known for two decades vouched for it, and that the dollars he was buying never arrived.

The Bidco Africa chairman was giving evidence at the Milimani Magistrate’s Court in a criminal case against Nick Nesbitt, the former chairman of Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority, which regulates the country’s securities industry.

Shah said Nesbitt introduced him to Bülent Boytorun, described as a partner and an expert in cryptocurrency and stablecoin transactions who could convert Kenyan shillings into United States dollars. A stablecoin is a digital token pegged to a conventional currency, and it is used to move money across borders faster than the banking system allows.

Bidco needed the dollars. The company, one of East Africa’s largest consumer goods manufacturers, buys imported raw materials and was struggling to obtain foreign currency through Kenyan banks during the shortage that gripped the country in 2023.

The arrangement was simple. Bidco would send shillings and receive dollars the next day. Shah agreed to buy $745,000 at a rate of 137.5 shillings, with May 24, 2023 as the value date, and a trade finance support agreement was signed the day before. The money went out by real-time gross settlement, the system Kenyan banks use for large same-day transfers.

“On the 24th, nothing arrived,” Shah testified.

He told the court the relationship with Nesbitt, spanning fifteen to twenty years, was what persuaded him. Nesbitt had worked at IBM, the two had served together in business organisations, and he had chaired the capital markets regulator.

“I trusted him because he’s a friend,” Shah said.

He added that without that trust he would never have given the money to a man he did not know. “I can say very openly here that without the trust, I would never have given this sort of money to a Mr. Bulent, who I didn’t even know,” he told the court.

Shah said he had done what checks he could. He contacted Standard Chartered Bank, which confirmed that Bee N Bee Kenya Limited was an existing account holder, and he understood Nesbitt to be a one-third partner in the British company that owned the Kenyan entity. The court also heard that Nesbitt was a signatory to accounts connected to the business and had been involved in opening them.

What Shah says happened afterwards is the sharpest part of his testimony. He told the court he later saw advertisements placed by Nesbitt promoting what appeared to be the same currency exchange service under a different name, BNX Partners Limited, offering other customers the ability to swap shillings for dollars.

He confronted Nesbitt about the advertisements and asked what had happened to Bidco’s money.

According to Shah, Nesbitt replied: “I got to make money.”

None of the allegations has been tested. Nesbitt faces criminal charges arising from the transaction and has not been convicted, and the account above is Shah’s evidence rather than a finding of the court.

The hearing resumes on Oct. 7 at noon.