What may have appeared to be a clever financial hustle has now landed Kenyan national Francis Mogambi in the hands of US authorities, exposing a much wider international student aid fraud network with potential losses exceeding KSh25 billion.He allegedly turned stolen identities into a money-making venture, earning thousands of dollars weekly while unsuspecting Americans were left with student loans they never applied for.
A Kenyan man, Francis Mogambi, has been arrested in the United States and charged in connection with an alleged student financial aid fraud scheme involving stolen American identities and fictitious college students.
According to the US Department of Justice, Mogambi was indicted by a federal grand jury in Nebraska , facing five counts of theft of government money and five counts of aggravated identity theft.
Prosecutors allege that between November 2025 and May 2026, Mogambi worked with associates in Kenya to obtain personal information belonging to American citizens and use it to enrol fictitious students in US colleges and universities.
The fraudulent applications allegedly enabled the network to access federal student financial aid, with payments redirected to accounts controlled by the suspects. Mogambi reportedly retained 30 per cent of the proceeds while transferring the remainder to his alleged Kenyan associates.
Court documents further indicate that he received approximately $2,000 (about KSh258,000) weekly and attempted to recruit another individual into the operation by offering to help establish a business that could cash larger cheques without paying taxes.
The intended financial loss attributed to Mogambi’s individual case is estimated at $20,000 (approximately KSh2.6 million).
The arrest forms part of Operation Ghostbusters, a nationwide US investigation targeting a suspected student financial aid fraud network that has allegedly been operating since 2021.
In a statement released , the Justice Department disclosed that five defendants had been charged across three federal districts, while investigators had identified more than 40 active cases across 26 FBI field offices and over 20 US Attorneys’ Offices.
Authorities also revealed that approximately 830,840 potentially fraudulent student aid identification accounts, linked to nearly $130 million in suspected fraud, had been identified in September and October 2026.
The wider investigation estimates that losses from ghost-student fraud schemes could exceed $200 million (approximately KSh25.8 billion). Investigators have also seized more than $750,000 (approximately KSh97 million) in cryptocurrency connected to a Kenyan-linked network, marking the first international seizure of its kind in Kenya by the US Fraud Division.
The scheme allegedly exploited the US Federal Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) system, using stolen identities to create students who never attended classes. In some cases, sophisticated technology was reportedly used to make the fictitious students appear academically active to keep financial aid payments flowing.
Mogambi remains in custody pending trial.
