The High Court has temporarily blocked the extradition of three Kenyans wanted in the United States over an alleged multi-million-dollar fraud scheme, pending the outcome of an appeal against the order to hand them over.
Justice Alexander Muteti suspended the earlier ruling that would have seen Peter Omari, Francis Asanyo and Elvis Obaigwa surrendered to American authorities to face trial on tax fraud charges. Lawyers Ishmael Nyaribo and Cliff Oduk, representing the trio, have seven days to file submissions challenging the extradition.
Oduk’s case rests on a straightforward argument: Kenya has no extradition treaty with the US, so the men shouldn’t be handed over at all. Nyaribo, meanwhile, plans to push for the three to be released on bond while the appeal plays out.
He wants the court to note that the men had actually been out on bond until August 6, when Senior Principal Magistrate Paul Mutai allowed US security agents to take custody of them for an airlift out of the country. According to Nyaribo, that history shows they were never flight risks in the first place.
Mutai had cancelled the trio’s Sh5 million bonds and ordered them held at Kileleshwa Police Station pending further proceedings. Oduk had asked him to stay the extradition order pending an appeal, but the magistrate refused, ruling that the Director of Public Prosecutions had established a case against each man based on evidence transmitted from the US.
“I urge this court to stay the extradition direction pending the outcome of the intended appeal at the High Court,” Oduk told the magistrate at the time, before being granted 14 days to lodge that appeal.
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The case traces back to March 2, 2026, when DPP Renson Ingonga applied to enforce an international arrest warrant issued by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, dated November 15, 2023. The three are wanted on charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and aiding and abetting crime.
The DPP’s office received the formal extradition request on February 25, 2026, routed through the Attorney-General’s Chambers after Washington first raised the matter via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Arguing for the extradition at the trial level, the DPP told the court that Kenya and the US share a common commitment to fighting crime and economic offences. Oduk pushed back hard on that framing, insisting the two countries haven’t had a functioning extradition treaty in nearly a century.
“For the last 95 years, there has been no extradition treaty between Kenya and the US and therefore this court cannot give away our sons to a foreign country,” he told the magistrate.
Prosecuting counsel Virginia Kariuki countered that a treaty wasn’t actually necessary. Kenya, she pointed out, signed and ratified the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime back in 2004, and money laundering qualifies as an extraditable offence under that convention.
Mutai agreed with her reading of the law, pointing to Article 2(5) and (6) of the Constitution, which makes ratified treaties and general rules of international law part of Kenyan law.
“It is clear that the state opted to pursue the extradition process using a convention signed by both states (Kenya/US),” he said, adding that both countries’ membership in the convention gave the extradition a proper legal foundation.
He was ultimately unambiguous in his ruling. “I am satisfied that a case has been made out by the DPP against the three respondents to warrant extradition. The offence allegedly committed is extraditable. As a consequence, the application dated March 2, 2026, is hereby allowed.” That ruling ordered the three men surrendered to US custody, at least until the High Court intervened this week.
The men had flown back into Kenya while American investigators were still trailing them, and were eventually arrested at their rural homes in Kisii County. Court documents show the arrest was the product of a joint operation involving the DCI, Interpol and the FBI, after Kenyan detectives received a tip-off from the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, office.
A Serious Crimes Unit officer told the court that the men, along with unnamed co-conspirators still at large, were behind a scheme involving Business Email Compromise and Vendor Account Compromise fraud, targeting online Vendor Self Service platforms used by US state and local government bodies to manage payments since April 2019.
Investigators say the group registered internet domains deliberately designed to resemble those of legitimate companies already holding contracts with the targeted agencies.
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