Kenya seizes Miss World sponsor

A POLICE probe into a former business associate of one-time Tory Party chairman Lord Parkinson has been stalled after the arrest of millionaire Ketan Somaia in Kenya.

Somaia, a former sponsor of the Miss World competition through his Dolphin hotels, banking and motor trading group, was hauled off a BA flight to London. He now faces two separate trials in Nairobi.

Meanwhile, authorities in Tanzania, Uganda and Mauritius, have either made extradition requests for Somaia or started investigations.

Hertfordshire Fraud Squad began an investigation last year after it was claimed Somaia, 42, failed to return an investment of £500,000 in Delphis Bank of Mauritius, which he formerly headed.

At the time he was arrested in Kenya, Somaia, who has a mansion near Barnet, north London, was on police bail but had not been charged. 'He is still on bail but we are right at the back of the pecking order,' said Hertfordshire police.

A London director of Delphis bank was arrested last March over allegations of laundering the £500,000. He is no longer on police bail.

Shortly after Financial Mail on Sunday detailed Somaia's problems in February last year, Delphis was closed by the authorities in Mauritius.

Parkinson was chairman of Dubai-based Dolphin Holdings for eight years. He resigned three years ago. Somaia returned to Kenya in March for the first time in ten years. He was wanted to face a Parliamentary committee investigating £4 million paid for mostly undelivered police equipment.

Somaia's surprise arrest followed a request for his extradition from Tanzania where he had been accused of defrauding a businessman of £150,000. Tanzania had just closed the local Delphis bank. Instead of being extradited, Somaia was charged with stealing almost £1 million from the National Bank of Kenya in a deal to import London taxis.

Then, in June, Somaia was charged with defrauding a German-based businessman of £2.2 million. He is on bail.

Somaia, who denies all the charges, has been banned from leaving Kenya by a commission investigating a £150 million banking and political corruption scandal involving credits for fictitious gold and diamond exports.