NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 26 – A Narok businessman, Awil Abdirhaman Adulle, has taken a fraud case to court after allegedly losing Sh10 million in a failed deal to establish a Java House branch that was never built.Awil told the court he was first approached in 2018 by Java House property manager Gianni Mwaniki, who proposed setting up an outlet at his petrol station in Narok.He said subsequent meetings involved senior executives from the restaurant chain, leading to a 2021 agreement under which he transferred millions via M-Pesa and bank transactions for construction of the outlet.“No Java House [was] ever built, and the accused gave me fake documentation. I have never seen anything from him,” Awil testified.Court records indicate that former Java House Chief Executive Officer Derrick Cornelius Van Houten faced a charge of obtaining Sh7.9 million from Awil by false pretence between October 2021 and January 2022.According to the complaint construction never began upon completion of payments as expected. Instead, the accused allegedly terminated the contract while purporting to refund the money — a promise that never materialised.Van Houten has denied the charges before the Milimani Law Courts and secured release on a cash bail of Sh500,000.In September 2024, the Director of Public Prosecutions rejected an application to drop the case, ruling that there was sufficient evidence for the matter to proceed.