Kenyan police detaining South Sudanese man over forgery, fraud

NAIROBI – Police in Nairobi are holding a South Sudanese man over claims he had forged travelling documents.

The man is also said to have stayed at various city hotels and escaped without settling his bills.

Tony Taban Suleman aka Don Solo was first arrested in his house on February 21 over claims of being involved in money laundering and drug trafficking.

But after a search, nothing was found in his house in Kilimani area.

Police found his passport indicating he was a South Sudanese.

But when the document was run on immigration records they discovered the visa imposed on it was forged.

The visa showed he had been to Australia.

Police said they had discovered he is a South Sudanese.

He was taken to court and charged with forgery and being in Kenya illegally.

But before Milimani Magistrate Martha Mutuku could release him on bail, it was discovered he had a warrant of arrest on him.

This was in regard to a case that he obtained services at Sankara Hotel Westlands and sneaked without paying.

The court was told on Thursday that he had cleared the Sankara Sh200,000 bill while in custody.

Hours later, management of Kempinski Villa Rosa came and told the detectives at Parklands that Solo stayed there for 22 days and failed to pay a bill of around Sh1.045 million.

Another Islamic financial institution had also reported at the Central police station of having been conned of an unknown amount of money.

The case is under investigation.

The magistrate ordered he be detained until March 9 when she was to make an order regarding his bail application.

Kilimani detectives and the prosecution have opposed the bail application by Solo.

He once dated a belligerent

Ugandan TV personality and is known for obtaining goods and services from hotels and sneaking without paying.

According to reports, he is said to be also wanted by Australian authorities.

In March 2019 he was accused of frauds at various banks in Melbourne Capital, Victoria State.

He had used stolen cheques to make deposits at banks in Sunshine, Burwood East and Melbourne CBD.

The stolen cheque book was believed to be linked to a burglary in Toorak, Australia in December 2015 and as a result, a warrant of arrest was issued against him.