‘He spoke loudly on the phone about depositing dollars in his bank account. Then he talked about his cargo being shipped from China. Then he stopped me,’ Pr Nakanwagi says.
She adds that after greeting her, the man told her that he had just returned from the United States.
He allegedly told her that his name was Francis M Kakwadi, a director of Moonlight Petrol Station and an owner of several export companies.
Pr Nakanwagi said the man then dived into business issues, asking about where he could buy Nile Perch swim bladders in Jinja City with the purpose of exporting them abroad.
She claims that the suspect drugged her two days later and robbed her of Shs7 million.
Kira Police Region spokesman, Superintendent of Police James Mubi, says they later identified the suspect’s real name as John Sembatya Kaggwa, 50, a resident of Nansana Municipality, Wakiso District.
Police investigations reveal that the suspect allegedly had affairs with wealthy women whom he later sedated and robbed of their property and money. Pr Nakanwagi denied having romantic relations with the suspect.
Pr Nakanwagi says during her interactions with the suspect in Jinja, he reportedly said he wanted to buy a vehicle from a bond in the city to ease his movements.
She says she connected the suspect to her friends dealing in vehicles. Mr Kaggwa and Pr Nakanwagi reportedly shared contacts and parted ways in their own direction, but agreed to meet the next day to conclude the car purchase.
They met the following day at around 10am. A few minutes after their meeting, Mr Kaggwa allegedly said he was hungry and asked Pr Nakanwagi where a good restaurant was in Jinja City.
Pr Nakanwagi says she directed him to a restaurant, but he requested her to accompany him and share a meal with him.
‘I took him to a restaurant near Jinja Central Police Station. He complained about the quality of the services… He asked me whether I knew any other better place. I told him of another place,’ Pr Nakanwagi claims.
She narrates that they moved to another restaurant where he ordered Red Bull. The pastor reportedly ordered a glass of juice and later went for a short call before finishing her drink. Thereafter, Pr Nakanwagi reportedly took him to three car bonds in search of a vehicle.
She says at the last bond they visited, Mr Kaggwa asked for a black Toyota Harrier.
‘He went for a test drive. He said he loved the vehicle and would buy it. But he said he didn’t carry the money. He needed to withdraw it from the bank,’ she narrates.
Pr Nakanwagi says the car bond manager allowed Mr Kaggwa to go with the vehicle to collect the money on the condition that Pr Nakanwagi, a friend of his, accompanies Mr Kaggwa.
‘That man (Kaggwa) and I drove the car to look for an ATM,’ she says. Pr Nakanwagi says she blacked out along the way. ‘I only woke up deep in the night, and I was on the hospital bed. I asked where I was. They then told me the story,’ she says.
Pr Nakanwagi was told that passers-by had found her alone and unconscious in a car on the roadside in Jinja City.
‘Some of the people who found me thought I had consumed alcohol and passed out. When people gathered, those who knew me told them that I was a pastor and that I do not drink alcohol. They then took me to a hospital for treatment,’ she says.
Pr Nakanwagi says health workers who attended to her told her that she had been sedated, and she was in a critical condition. ‘The doctors said I would have died if I hadn’t been taken to hospital early enough,’ she says.
Pr Nakanwagi adds that she found out that her ATM card had been stolen and her money in her mobile wallet had been withdrawn.
‘Shs4.79 million on my ATM card was withdrawn. Another Shs1.79 million on my mobile phone was also withdrawn. Fortunately, he didn’t take my mobile phone,’ she says.
She reported a case of robbery at Jinja Central Police Station. Police investigators retrieved CCTV footage from the restaurant where the suspect and the pastor had a meal.
The footage appears to show the suspect administering an unknown substance in the victim’s juice when she went for a short call.
The police officers thereafter obtained the suspect’s real identity, which enabled them to track him.
At least 30 people whom he had contacted on the phone were arrested. Most of them were women, who also claimed that he had sedated them and robbed them of their money and property.
One woman, a resident of Kampala City, says the suspect sedated her while they were in her shop and made off with all her merchandise.
Another woman dealing in mattresses allegedly lost Shs7 million to the man when he visited her at home.
Police tracked the suspect in Nansana Municipality, Wakiso District, where he was arrested in a guest house at Naluvule on June 2.
Mr Mubi, the Kira Police Region spokesman, says upon searching the vehicle the suspect was driving, the detectives recovered contacts of many of those who accused him of drugging and robbing them.
The suspect was driven back to Jinja City. Mr Kaggwa was later arraigned at Jinja Magistrates’ Court on June 5, where he was charged with aggravated robbery.
He was thereafter remanded to Kirinya Prison. Mr Kaggwa will be produced in court again on July 6.