Prince Karim Aga Khan, DTB Summoned to Court over Hamis Kiggundu’s lost billions in the disputed loans

KAMPALA, Uganda: Court in Uganda has issued criminal summons for one of the wealthiest persons in the world after a customer of the bank he owns fraudulently lost billions of money said to have been siphoned off his accounts.

Prince Karim AL-Husayn Shah commonly referred to as Aga Khan is the one in the eye of the storm over the alleged fraudulent tendencies of Diamond Trust Bank (Uganda).

A magistrate in Kampala issued the summons to Aga Khan after one of Uganda’s youngest tycoons, Hamis Kiggundu filed four criminal charges against the wealthy man who is also a patriarch of the Ismailia faith, arising out of a bank fraud via which he lost close to two hundred billion shillings.

Aga Khan is required to appear in the Kampala City Council Authority magistrates court on September 28, according to summons dated September 13.

“Whereas your attendance is necessary in court to answer to charges of theft contrary to Section 254 of the Penal Code Act Cap 120, making false entries in financial ledgers contrary to Section 47(1) and (3) of the Financial Institutions Act 2004, electronic fraud contrary to Section 19 of the Computer Misuse Act, uttering false documents contrary to Section 351 of the Penal Code Act Cap 120 and conspiracy to commit a felony contrary to Section 390 of the Penal Code Act Cap 120, you are hereby commanded by the Uganda Government to appear in this court on September 28, 2021 at 10.00am or soon thereafter as the case can be heard,” reads the two paged criminal summons.

Aga Khan is wanted in court together with the Group CEO and MD of Diamond Trust Bank Kenya, Nassim Mohamed Devji and the Uganda Diamond Trust Bank CEO, Varghese Thambi and John Sitakange, the bank’s Head of Credit in Uganda.

Meanwhile, Ham wants court to find Aga Khan and his co-suspects incompetent to run the business of a financial institution for falsely filing statements with the central bank concealing the fraud that was being committed against him.

Ham’s lawyers of Muwema and company advocates filed the criminal charges on behalf of their client. “The above persons who are the directing mind of the bank had knowledge of the illegal transactions and they bear criminal liability for the approval and concurrence in committing the deception and fraud on the complainant’s bank accounts,” reads a written statement by Ham.

Because of the above actions and omissions Ham continues, “the four do not meet the criteria and they are not fit and proper persons to win, control and manage the bank or any other financial institution in accordance with the 3^rd Schedule of the Financial Institutions Act, 2004”

He adds further, “That DTB as a licensed and regulated financial institution has violated all ethical, legal standards and norms of prudential regulation and it meets conditions for revocation of its banking license by the central bank pursuant to the Financial Institutions Act 2004.”

For starters, Ham is suing the bank already for allegedly stealing from his Uganda shillings and dollar accounts under the cover of recovering loans which he says he had fully paid.

Justice Henry Adonyo cancelled the agreements over which Ham borrowed the money after discovering that DTB Kenya through DTB Uganda lent the money without a license from Bank of Uganda.

The judge ordered the two banks to release the titles and properties which Ham pledged while receiving the impugned loans. DTB appealed the ruling.

The ten-year-customer bank relationship turned frosty after Ham engaged accountants in 2019 who caused an audit and discovered that DTB had clandestinely and illicitly debited his accounts by a whopping 34,295,951,553 shillings and by 23,467,670.61 United States dollars.

Upon the accountants delivering the shocking report complete with actual amounts debited and the days on which they were scammed off, Ham wrote to DTB on November 16, 2019 seeking for rectification of the fraudulent withdrawals, but the bank ignored him.

He reminded the bank to remedy the fraud by another letter of January 10, 2020. “The bank still ignored the above request for a full account and reconciliation and yet this would have given the bank an opportunity to explain and or correct the false entries in the bank statements,” Ham contends via a written statement dated September 8, 2021.