In today’s episode, we discuss whether a person has a cause of action against a lover who borrowed money from her, in the pretence of doing business and disappeared with it.

So there is this man who duped my mother and as we now know it, a few other vulnerable women of their retirement funds. He comes into their lives and takes advantage of their loneliness for the promise of love and talks them into starting a business with him. Once he gets the money he sticks around for a few weeks in the pretence of doing errands to meet the requirements to do the said business and then he sets off for travel in the name of outsourcing the resources and then he can’t be reached again. My mother gave him all of 780k for the business. Since his disappearance, my mom got worried and she has since filed a missing report and that is how she found out she is one of his many victims. All my mother wants is her money back. She was smart enough to have a written agreement, that basically says that in case the business doesn’t take off, she would get 80% of the money she invested back. All she wants is her money. Kindly advise her on how to move forward.

Research by Barasa Wanjala (barasa@swalanyeti.org)