A fake lawyer, Brian Mwenda, who has won 26 cases while representing himself as an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, has been taken into custody by Kenyan police. As per Nigerian Tribune, the attorney handled all these cases in front of Magistrates, Court of Appeal Judges, and High Court judges.
Mwenda had been able to portray himself as a qualified attorney for a considerable amount of time, according to the report, and judges did not doubt his abilities until after his most recent arrest.
The Rapid Action Team of the Nairobi Branch of the Law Society of Kenya arrested him on false pretences after they received a lot of public complaints.
The official account for the Nairobi Branch of the Law Society of Kenya, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, "The Branch wishes to notify all members of the society and of the public that BRIAN MWENDA NJAGI is not an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, from the Society's records, neither is he a member of the Branch." He is being held by the officials for further investigation.
The Law Society of Kenya said that Mwenda accessed their portal criminally and "identified an account with a name corresponding to his, tampered with the details, and uploaded his own photo in a bid to infiltrate Kenya's legal profession", as per a report in Ghana Web.
They added that after an emergency meeting, they analysed that "Brian Mwenda stole the identity of a lawyer with a name that is similar to his - Brian Mwenda Ntwiga - after the legitimate lawyer reached out to the Secretariat after realising that he could no longer log into the system."
After informing the IT department on September 28 of his difficulties, they promptly discovered that he was unable to access his membership site since the information in the system, especially his email address, did not belong to him.
"On the 5th Day of August 2022, Brian Mwenda Ntwiga was admitted to the Bar and his correct email address was captured and an Account opened for him in the Advocates portal. We reached out to Advocate Brian Mwenda Ntwiga who confirmed that he had not applied for a practicing certificate since his admission, reason being that he had been working at the Office of the Attorney General and did not require a Practicing Certificate," the statement said.
The Law Society of Kenya continued, "It was only until sometime in September 2023 when he attempted to login into the system and activate his profile to apply for his Practising Certificate that he realised he could not access his LSK Portal."
They also revealed that after being granted access to the platform, Brian Mwenda modified his profile photo, applied for, and paid for his practising certificate. "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. However, his application was not processed since he was required to provide documents including the certificate of business incorporation," they said.
