A prime suspect in the murder of a Scottish businessman has been targeting victims for years as part of a prolific honeytrap campaign in which he is accused of viciously torturing those he robbed.
Benard Mbunga Mbusu is being hunted by Kenyan detectives in connection with the death of Campbell Scott, who travelled to the country to attend a business conference before he was found dead days later.
He vanished from his hotel and was spotted getting into taxi in Nairobi with a mystery man.
After the 58-year-old, from Dunfermline, Fife, disappeared money was withdrawn from his account, and his body was discovered with his hands and legs bound at the edge of a forest more than 60 miles away from the luxury hotel he checked in to in the capital city.
Mbusu has become one of the key suspects for detectives trying to solve the case and, along with two others, is subject to a Kenya-wide manhunt.
But it can now be revealed that as well as being arrested a year ago for abducting and blackmailing a church pastor, he was also detained in 2020 for alleged crimes eerily similar to the mystery surrounding Mr Scott.
And he was also arrested that same year over another case in which he was accused of threatening to kill a senior member of staff at the Kenyan Parliament. It is not known if the case ever proceeded to courts.
In October 2020 Mbusu was arrested, along with three others, after victims to an online dating scam were taken hostage and had money syphoned out of their bank accounts.
Police swooped on a house in Nairobi, during which police freed a Turkish national, amid an investigation into a ‘notorious syndicate that has been luring unsuspecting victims through online dating sites and extorting money from them’. An Indian national also fell victim to the con.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations revealed following the arrests: ‘At least three men were lured to a home in mid-June under the guise of socialising with an attractive woman.
‘When they arrived, a woman met them in the driveway and escorted them inside.
‘The victims were then robbed, viciously tortured and beaten.’
In those abductions a woman had been the bait on an online dating website, and after the men arrived at the flat they were held against their will, beaten, kicked and pistol-whipped throughout the night.
The Kenyan police department added: ‘The suspects threatened to harm the victims’ families if they didn’t cooperate before forcing them into their cars, driving to various ATMs before forcing them to withdraw money from various bank accounts.’
Mbusu is due to stand trial on two accounts of robbery with violence while the case involving the pastor did not go ahead after he asked it to be dropped.
There has been intense police activity in the hunt for Mr Scott’s killers.
Two men have already appeared in court in connection with his murder and are being held in custody after ‘forensic evidence has conclusively linked’ them to the murder.
But three men, Mbusu, Samuel Musembi Kamitu, and Alphonse Munyao Kilewa, are on the run and have gone into hiding.
Mr Scott, who was a senior director at credit scoring firm Fico, had checked into the JW Marriot Hotel in the upmarket Westlands area of Nairobi.
The following day he was seen leaving and visited the nearby Havana Bar and Restaurant with a man.
Shortly after the pair were then picked up by an Uber driver, who took them to a flat in the city’s notorious Pipeline slum.
Kenyan detectives revealed last week they had ‘uncovered multiple attempts both successful and unsuccessful to withdraw funds from Scott’s bank accounts in Nairobi, Voi and Mombasa before his murder and the subsequent disposal of his body in Makongo forest’.
Yesterday, local reports said Mbusu and another man were arrested in May 2020 after a staff member at the Parliament reported he had received death threats.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations confirmed the arrest but the outcome of the full investigation is not known.