130 youth arrested at KDF training school in Eldoret

Police officers in Eldoret on Sunday arrested over 130 individuals who presented themselves at the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) Training School with fake calling letters.

The individuals are said to have been defrauded of a total of over Ksh.50 million and presented with the counterfeit calling letters in what military officials are calling a recruitment scam.

“During the reception, we discovered that 130 had letters which cannot be authoritatively confirmed to have been issued by KDF. We are handing the owners of those letters to the civil police to carry out investigation,” said Brigadier Martin Ong’oyi.

According to one of the would-be recruits who spoke to Citizen TV, he turned up at the KDF training school despite knowing his letter was fake as he had not turned up for the recruitment exercise in March.

The individual further added that he was handed the letter by a military officer from Lang’ata barracks in Nairobi.

Another claimed that he even quit his day job at the prospect of landing a military job.

“I had already told my Indian boss that I was resigning because I had got a military job. What am I supposed to tell him now?” lamented one of the would-be recruits.

The recruits, drawn from various parts of the country, were handed over to the Kenya Police on standby and driven to the Eldoret Police Station for further questioning.

They are expected to be arraigned in court on Monday.

The number of those with fake letters this year has risen to 132 from last year’s 65.

Two individuals suspected to have been selling fake KDF admission papers had earlier been arrested in the same region.

The two, who are reported to have conned various residents millions of shillings, were arrested in connection with being in possession of counterfeit letters and targeting unsuspecting individuals desperate to join the KDF.