By Homeland Intelligence Corps
The Internal Security Organisation deputy Director-General, Taban Idi Amin spent the better half of Friday at the Criminal Investigations Directorate in Kibuli being grilled over his alleged involvement in a shs30 billion fraud.
The CID spokesperson, Charles Twine told journalists that it is suspected that Taban participated in the fraud that saw American nationals lose $8 million which is equivalent to shs30 billion in an incident that happened in 2019.
The incident is also connected to a gold scam busted a few weeks ago by police and involved one Lt Enoch Katwesigye, a retired UPDF officer, city Lawyer Simon Peter Musangala and a police officer identified as Martin Bwayo.
“In 2019, two American nationals had transacted business involving gold in Cameroon, a West African country. They had bought gold worth $5 million and left it with the dealers to ship it for them to Canada. The consignment indeed traveled from Cameroon via Nairobi to Dubai and later Canada,” Twine said.
He however noted that when the consignment reached Canada, the two American businessmen realized they had been duped, and inside were aluminum bars instead of gold.
“The Americans allege that a week after, they received a phone call from Uganda and the caller identified himself as Idi Taban Amin and the head of intelligence services in Uganda. They say Amin told them their gold from Cameroon was intercepted from Uganda and the people who were taking it didn’t have genuine documents,” the CID spokesperson added.
According to information from CID, it is then that the deputy ISO Director gave the two Americans a two-week ultimatum to come and sort the mess and take their gold or else they would lose it and looked for, for possible prosecution in Uganda.
“They chartered a plane and received by a person who identified himself as Col.Frank which was a pseudo name but his real name is Lt Enoch Katwesigye who had a group of people who escorted the Americans to the home of Taban Amin.”
It is said that the deputy ISO Director-General then provided the two Americans with a list of 13 people that they had to pay money to before being cleared to take their gold.
“The payment was completed but there was no gold given to them,” Twine said.
Earlier last month, police had arrested Katwesigye, lawyer Musangala and Bwayo over the same gold scam.
It was alleged that when the Americans traveled to Uganda, they paid $3.8 million before they were given the gold but on their way to Entebbe Airport, they were ambushed by the group led by Katwesigye and all their vehicle was ransacked for all the gold bars.
Gold exported by Uganda in recent years gone up to become the second-largest export after coffee and last year, the county earned shs590 billion from the same.
However, despite this trend, the number of fraudsters involved in gold scams in Uganda has more than tripled and many people, especially foreign nationals have fallen prey to them.
Many of the fraudsters work closely with some security officers to pull off their scams by selling fake gold to investors and taking their money.
Whereas Police have arrested a number of them, many are still on the loose.
