Festus Omwamba
Full name: Festus Arasa Omwamba
Year of birth: 1993 (age 33 at time of arrest)
Nationality: Kenyan
Company: Global Face Human Resources Limited
Address: Koinange Street, Nairobi
Legal status: Arrested and charged with human trafficking; held pending bond ruling, Kahawa Law Courts
What He Did
Omwamba owned and operated Global Face Human Resources Limited, a recruitment agency on Koinange Street in Nairobi registered in February 2024 - just over a year before his arrest. The agency was never accredited by Kenya's National Employment Authority (NEA), but that did not stop it from running active recruitment drives across the country, targeting skilled and semi-skilled youth with promises of well-paying jobs abroad.
His main tool was the Kazi Majuu Initiative - a legitimate Kenyan government programme for overseas employment - which he invoked to make his agency appear government-endorsed. Recruits who signed with Global Face Human Resources believed they were going through an official channel.
They were not. Recruits departed Kenya on tourist visas, routed through Istanbul and Abu Dhabi before arriving in Moscow. Upon arrival, they were taken to military camps, given approximately three weeks of training, and deployed to the frontline in Ukraine. The contracts they signed in Kenya were not employment contracts. Kenya's parliament heard that approximately 800 Kenyans passed through the pipeline Omwamba operated.
Omwamba appeared before Kenya's National Assembly alongside Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua in February 2026, after which the Hansard of 18 February 2026 recorded parliamentarians describing the agency's operations in detail. He was subsequently arrested and charged with human trafficking. He appeared before Principal Magistrate Gideon Kiagi at Kahawa Law Courts, where the prosecution and defence argued over bail. The court ordered him to remain in custody pending the ruling. Magistrate Kiagi noted that unlawful conscription - forcing persons into active combat - carries a death sentence or life imprisonment under Kenyan law.
Several recruited Kenyans returned home dead or maimed. Among the families who came forward publicly:
Cliff, 31, from Kiambu. His family says he was promised a well-paying job in Russia. He ended up in a war zone. He did not come back alive. His family is pleading with the Kenyan government to help repatriate his body.
Christopher Musumba, 27, from Bamburi, Mombasa County. He was told he was going abroad to work as a driver. Upon arrival in Ethiopia - one stop on the route to Russia - he understood what was actually happening. Shortly afterward, contact with his family became irregular, then stopped. His family is appealing to the government to intervene
