The Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) formally withdrew a case filed against Nigerian payments company Flutterwave on Monday, allowing the company to reclaim the Sh6.6 billion that had been frozen since last year.
Appearing before High Court judge Esther Maina, the agency requested that the file be marked as withdrawn.
A withdrawal notice was filed in December, but the case was postponed due to several cases filed against the firm.
A group of Nigerians filed one of the cases in order to prevent their millions from being forfeited to the Kenyan government.
“The file is hereby marked as withdrawn,” Justice Maina said.
Olugbenga Agboola, the company’s chief executive officer and co-founder, flew into Kenya earlier this month in an attempt to unfreeze his Sh6.6 billion and lift a Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) embargo on the firm.
In less than a year, the start-up has seen its Kenya operations — were halted, with the High Court freezing Sh6.6 billion on suspicion of money laundering and the CBK ordering banks to cut ties with the firm.
Mr Agboola arrived in Nairobi to meet with the firm’s local team and to seek an audience with the CBK, which had asked his firm to start a new licence operation in December.
The CBK ordered local banks to stop dealing with Flutterwave in July, claiming it was not licenced and that its accounts had been frozen under the country’s anti-money laundering laws.
The funds were frozen in July of last year after ARA determined that the billions of dollars in 62 bank accounts were the proceeds of card fraud and money laundering.
The billions were held in accounts at Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), Equity, EcoBank, KCB, and Co-operative Bank as ARA attempted to forfeit them to the government.
According to the agency, investigations revealed that the money was wired under the guise of payments for goods and services.
Over 2,000 Nigerians later sought a share of the frozen billions, claiming they were duped out of their money by a sports betting platform that used Flutterwave to process payments.
However, on February 10, Justice Maina dismissed the case, a victory for Flutterwave after ARA signalled its intention to withdraw the case and unfreeze the funds.
RemX and Kandon Technologies, in addition to Flutterwave, had their funds frozen while ARA investigated them for money laundering.
Flutterwave called allegations of financial impropriety “entirely false,” adding that it had records to back up the claims.
The Lagos-based company, founded in 2016, is now the continent’s largest payments start-up. In 35 African countries, it has processed over 400 million transactions totaling more than $25 billion.
ARA changed its tune on Flutterwave in December, saying that investigations revealed that the money was not linked to money laundering, which was the reason for the CBK’s blockade of the licence.
