Kenya’s Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) has dropped fraud charges against Nigerian fintech Kora. The startup was in July accused of money laundering and card fraud in the country. ARA went ahead and froze their accounts over these accusations.
In new court documents, ARA has filed a notice of withdrawal of the charges at the High Court of Kenya at Nairobi Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Division.
In the document drawn and filed on the 19th of October 2022, by state counsel Stephen Githinji on behalf of ARA director, the agency said that it had withdrawn its suit in its entirety.
In a further document issued by the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigation earlier this week, the agency cleared Kora of any wrongdoing in the ARA application.
“Please note that investigations are now finalised. I would like to confirm that allegations of money laundering and card fraud against [Kora] were not established. Please treat this communication as final” — part of the statement from the DCI reads.
“Kora has always maintained its innocence in this matter and we are glad that finally the ARA and the DCI have dropped all charges and ratified Kora. We’d also like to commend both agencies for their professionalism and thoroughness in seeing this investigation to the conclusive end,” says Gideon Orovwiroro, Kora’s Chief Operations Officer.
“Kora acknowledges the potential Kenya presents as we pursue our mission to make it easy for global businesses to accept payments in Africa, and for African businesses to accept global payments. We are delighted to get back to building the most robust payment product on the African continent. We have some exciting announcements coming soon, including multi-currency bank account products for African businesses. This will empower merchants to have bank accounts in GBP, EUR, USD and other in-demand currencies. Kora is excited about this development as it is further proof of its commitment to enrich the quality of merchants’ payments and build more meaningful financial products.”
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