PREMIUM Investors counting their losses as Nairobi’s off-plan housing trap swallows millions The project was “packaged as a cheap sale and this attracted very many people.” News Just now

His rise before his eventual downfall may have inspired many people, among them Joseph Mwai, the founder and director of Nyumbani Concepts Limited, a Nairobi-based off-plan real estate developer at the centre of a multi-million-shillings dispute that has left investors seeking elusive refunds and staring at incomplete housing units.

Separately, former Tigania East MP Josphat Gichunge Kabeabea is in court after he was arrested by detectives from the Land Fraud Investigations Unit (LFIU), based at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters, following investigations into multiple complaints lodged by investors who lost close to Sh56 million through his company, Diamond Property Merchants Limited.

Ironically, the Daily Nation has traced Mr Mwai's digital footprint and established that his Master's in Business Administration thesis at United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa), Nairobi, was titled Factors Affecting Completion of Off-plan Developments, in which he warned developers and investors to avoid the pitfalls that befell former real estate giants such as Suraya, Cytonn and Banda Homes, which went down with billions of investors' money.