Jailed billionaire Ketan Somaia supposedly wooed his victims with champagne parties, extravagant dinners and trips on private Lear jets to Dubai, Kenya and South Africa. PHOTO/AFP

Somaia was sentenced by a London court for bamboozling investors of some £13.5 million (about Sh37.8 billion) that they had injected into his battling Dolphin Group 15 years ago.
His Delphis Bank Tanzania Ltd collapsed in 2003 as the Bank of Tanzania (B0T) placed it under its administration. BoT then accused Somaia and his co-shareholders of failing to plant into the enterprise enough capital to absorb significant shortfalls.
The London court established that Somaia swindled investors, convicting him of nine counts of obtaining money by deception.
“I am satisfied the money you took as loans and investments were never invested as you said they would be, but were used by you either for your own purposes or to prop up your failing companies,” said Judge Richard Hone, “You were fundamentally dishonest in your dealings.”
Somaia was described as persuasive, using his charm to get at clients’ cash to prop up what the court heard were failing businesses.
When Delphis Bank (Tanzania) Limited was shut down in 2003, the 52-year- old Kenya-born businessman got into a spot of trouble with local regulators.
Source: The Citizen