How Museveni assistant, partner were conned Shs450m in gold deal

Detectives have arrested the former National Resistance Movement Kampala City mayoral aspirant on allegations of conning a senior presidential assistant in charge of diaspora issues and her business partner over Shs450m in a fake gold deal.

Muhammad Kasule, who is also proprietor of Blue Diamond Corporation, allegedly conned Ms Florence Kiremerwa and her US business partner, Mr Richard Richards, of the said money after promising to deliver to them two kilogrammes of gold.
Mr Vicent Ssekatte, the spokesman of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, confirmed the arrest of Kasule.
“A complaint was made to us and we have arrested Kasule on charges of obtaining money by false pretences and uttering false documents and forgery,” Mr Ssekatte said on Tuesday.

It is alleged that Kasule promised Ms Kiremerwa and Mr Richards to sell them gold at US$50,000 (Shs150m) mid last year.
Mr Richards wired US$48,000 to Ms Kiremerwa’s bank account. She also transferred the money to Kasule’s account in KCB main branch in Kampala City.
Mr Ssekatte said Kasule didn’t deliver the two kilogrammes of gold.
“He told Richards to travel back to US and convinced him that he would send the consignment. When Richards went back to the US, Kasule started dealing with him directly,” he said.

The suspect allegedly told Mr Richards that he had 50kgms of gold in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and then demanded for US$107,759.
The suspect is said to have sent him documents to prove that the gold was available.
Mr Richards wired the money to the suspect’s bank account. Kasule cut all communications.
Ms Kiremerwa detected the scam and reported to CID headquarters.

According to police, the mobile phone numbers that the suspect had given to his victims were found out to be not in his names.
They tracked one that led them to Edson Kasyata, but he denied any dealings with the suspect.
His company was also found to be unregistered.
Mr Ssekatte said verification of documents he gave to the victims were also found out to be forgeries.
“For more than nine months he has been in hiding. Detectives have been looking for him until they got a tip off and arrested him on Monday,” he said.
Recently, the CID warned foreigners who travel to Uganda to buy gold of conmen after an increase in scams reported to the police.
The police said most of victims are from Middle East, Europe and US.