SK Mbuga and his wife Vivienne Chebet on their wedding day. COURTESY PHOSO
Ms Angella Vivienne Chebet, the wife of Sulaiman Kabangala (aka SK) Mbuga, who is wanted in Sweden on a case of defrauding 53m Krona (about Shs20.9billion) from her Swedish boyfriend Sten Heinsoo, has been arrested and is being held at Katwe Police Station in Kampala.
Ms Chebet’s arrest comes only one week after her husband was extradited to Denmark.
Kampala Metropolitan spokesperson Patrick Onyango confirmed the arrest but said he did not have details.
“She is being held on a case of money laundering but the details can be obtained from CID headquarters in Kibuli,” Mr Onyango said yesterday.
Sources within the police told Saturday Monitor that Ms Chebet was arrested with authority from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation in Kibuli over a case where she allegedly defrauded someone.
“Yes she was arrested and brought here but as far as I’m concerned, we are only keeping her for the night. She will be taken to Kibuli where the case is being investigated,” a police source that declined to be named said.
However, our sources within Interpol Uganda have confirmed that they have an arrest warrant for Ms Chebet.
“Interpol needs her for fraud and we are going to pick her,” the source revealed.
Mr Mbuga was arrested in the United Arab Emirates locked up at the Awiir Central jail in Dubai, a port city on the Persian Gulf, over fraud involving Dubai and Oman businessmen. He now faces another fraud case in Denmark involving $2.6m (about Shs9.5b) in a gold deal gone bad.
Though both the Government of Uganda and the Danish embassy in Kampala have remained tight-lipped over the issue, Saturday Monitor has learnt that there is a growing concern in his family.
Mr Mbuga, a Kampala’s socialite, is known for living a luxurious lifestyle and driving posh cars, but he had reportedly sold off some of his luxurious cars to raise the Shs1.6b he paid to a Dubai and Oman businessmen before he was let off the hook.
Mr Mbuga was held for over one year to pay up before he could be allowed to see a judge for sentencing.
SK Mbuga
Last year, the Swedish media reported that the Swedish government had requested for assistance from the Uganda government to have Mr Mbuga and his wife Chebet arrested. Uganda and Sweden do not have an extradition treaty between them.
Ms Chebet had been arrested and charged in a Swedish court in February 2017, but jumped bail and found her way back to Uganda.
“As stated in the preliminary investigation, a request for legal assistance from Uganda has been sent, which has not yet been answered,” the Swedish Chamber prosecutor Mathias Lidberg’s was quoted by a media outlet in Sweden last year as saying.
