In case you missed it, read part I and II of this serialisation here and here

For nearly two years, the motorcycle was gone, at least on paper. Reported stolen in early 2023, it had long been written off as another casualty in Kenya’s boda boda theft crisis.

The client informed his creditor that the motorbike had vanished under unclear circumstances. But the truth would emerge much later, and in the most unexpected way.

The motorbike resurfaced when the same client attempted to quietly sell it in late 2025. That move triggered a chain of events that led investigators straight back to the supposed victim.

Recovery teams at Watu Kenya, working in coordination with police officers and potential buyers, traced the motorcycle to where it was hidden. What followed was a tense operation—the client, now exposed, attempted to mobilise resistance to block the repossession. But the effort failed. The motorcycle was recovered intact, and the narrative of theft collapsed.

It was not a case of a stolen bike being found. It was a case of a fake story being unravelled.

Across Kenya’s motorcycle financing ecosystem, a troubling pattern is emerging, one in which clients and riders, initially presenting themselves as victims of theft, are later discovered to have played a direct role in the disappearance, concealment, or illegal sale of the assets. What begins as a theft report often evolves into an investigation of fraud.

Recovery data from multiple regions reveals that a large number of “stolen” motorcycles are anything but. Instead, they are deliberately hidden, repurposed, or sold off by individuals seeking to evade repayment obligations or turn a profit in a largely unregulated secondary market.

Read: Five companies on the spot over mysterious disappearance of motorcycles

At the centre of these schemes is a set of increasingly sophisticated tactics designed to defeat tracking and identification systems. Number plate alteration is among the most common. In several recent recoveries, motorcycles reported stolen were found operating in different regions under new registrations.

In late 2024, a client visited Watu’s offices in Upper Hill, Nairobi and was granted a loan to buy a motorbike. The number plate was KMFZ 619M. A few months later, he reported the bike stolen. Investigators traced the bike close to a year later.

It emerged that the client had sold it to a man identified as Simon, but before doing so, he had changed the number plate to KMFZ 512V. The last payment for the motorbike was made in February, just three months after it was purchased on loan.

In some of the most striking cases, the deception extends to family members. Currently, a matter involving a motorcycle reported stolen is before the Thika Law Courts. It was found to be at the centre of a carefully orchestrated scheme involving both the owner and his son. Investigators discovered that the tracker had been tampered with along Waiyaki Way before the motorcycle was moved. The theft was then reported by the client’s son, who was also the rider.

Well-kept secret

Both the client and the son were eventually arrested in Eldoret and taken to Thika to face charges.

In Kitui, a squabble between a husband and wife revealed a well-kept secret involving a motorbike buried behind their house for close to three months. The man, in an attempt to swindle his creditors, informed his wife of his plan to hide the motorbike in a shallow grave, report it as stolen and thus evade the daily payments to his lender. The wife protested but eventually let the matter rest.

A few months later, the couple engaged in a fight and in anger, the wife rushed to the nearby police station and spilt the beans on the fake theft report made months earlier by her husband.

“We were shocked when we tracked the bike right behind the client’s house. We were almost closing the file, knowing the bike had been stolen,” Watu’s head of asset recovery said.

Read: How boda boda thieves exploit dual nationality

Some 550 kilometres away, another client—Kevin—was involved in a self-inflicted theft. While ferrying pillion passengers along the busy streets of Webuye town, the red bike had always borne the number plate- KMFU 975Q, but five months into the loan repayment, Kevin reported the Boxer 125cc HD had been stolen. A quick probe, however, revealed that he had sold it to a third party and moved from Webuye to a different area. The fake number plate was now KMFU 579Q.

“The client had also changed the number plate to conceal the identity of the asset. However, the suspect was arrested, and the motorcycle was successfully recovered,” a record at Watu’s recovery asset unit reads.

Another case exposed what investigators described as a cartel-level operation. A recovered motorcycle was found bearing identifiers, including the number plate, chassis and engine numbers, that matched a fully-paid asset belonging to a different client in Mombasa.

When contacted, the legitimate owner confirmed he still had his motorcycle, exposing the recovered bike as a fraudulently modified asset. Authorities flagged the case as serious, noting that such alterations require technical expertise and coordination, pointing to organised networks rather than isolated actors.

But not all cases involve large syndicates. Some begin with everyday disputes that spiral into deception.

In one instance, both a client and rider reported that a motorcycle had been stolen. Investigations later revealed that the rider had withheld the bike following a disagreement over a repair bill of Sh5,600, which the client refused to settle. Instead of resolving the dispute, the rider hid the motorcycle and hired a group to guard it, effectively staging a theft.

The motivations behind such actions are often rooted in financial strain. Motorcycle financing in Kenya typically operates on a hire-purchase model, with clients required to make regular payments. Defaulting can result in repossession, loss of income, and mounting debt. For some, staging a theft becomes a way out; a means of shifting liability, delaying enforcement, or escaping repayment altogether.

In other cases, the motive is more straightforward: profit. Data shows that some motorcycles are sold off quickly at heavily discounted prices, particularly in areas where verification processes are weak. One intercepted bike had reportedly been purchased for just Sh80,000, far below its market value. Most bikes sold on credit go for between 200,000 and Sh300,000.

Informal markets

Such transactions point to the existence of informal markets where stolen or fraudulently obtained motorcycles are traded with little oversight.

The consequences of these fraudulent schemes extend beyond individual cases.

For lenders, false theft reports inflate risk, increase operational costs and complicate recovery efforts. For law enforcement, they divert resources away from genuine cases, slowing down investigations and undermining public trust. And for honest riders and clients, they create an environment of suspicion, where legitimate claims are met with increased scrutiny.

Creditors’ teams are increasingly relying on a combination of technology, intelligence networks and community informants to track down missing motorcycles. In high-risk areas, operations often require coordination with armed police units to prevent interference from organised groups or hostile individuals. In some cases, suspects have attempted to mobilise goons to resist recovery.

Fraudulent theft reporting occupies a grey area in enforcement. While theft is a clearly defined criminal offence, the act of staging a theft, particularly as part of a financial scheme, is not always prosecuted with the same consistency. This gap allows some perpetrators to exploit the system, knowing that proving intent can be difficult.

For genuine victims of motorcycle theft, this trend is particularly damaging. As more cases of deception come to light, lenders and investigators are becoming increasingly cautious. The result is longer verification processes, stricter requirements, and, in some cases, delayed assistance, all of which can compound the losses suffered by those who have truly fallen victim to theft.

Watu Kenya Country Manager, Erick Massawe, explained that their motorcycles come with GPS trackers, and as long as the rider or customer does not alter, tamper or vandalise the tracker, they have a really good chance of recovering it.

Read: MPs summon boda boda loan firms over theft, repossession of bikes

“There are times when customers hide their own assets and report them as stolen to get the benefit of getting another asset from us or claiming insurance,” he said.

Tracking the stolen motorbikes, he explained, does not just rely on the GPS trackers, but also needs a very strong network and relationship with boda boda associations chairpersons and networks across the country. Mr Massawe’s team has weekly contact with over 2,500 boda boda chairpersons across the country.

“If you understand the landscape, it is almost impossible to track bikes without the local knowledge. This is why we have invested in our relationship with boda boda associations chairmen,” he said.

What is emerging, ultimately, is a more complex picture of the boda boda theft in Kenya. Yes, organised criminal networks still operate, moving motorcycles across borders and dismantling them for parts. But alongside these external threats is an internal challenge, where clients, riders and their associates exploit the systems designed to support them.

These instances show that not every theft is what it seems, and that in some cases, the biggest obstacle to recovery is not the distance the motorcycle has travelled, but the deception that surrounds its disappearance.

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soketch@ke.nationmedia.com