On Monday afternoon, Halima put the phone on speaker before calling the person who had sent the commission table. Juma sat on the other side of the office table with a copy of the timestamps and a cup of tea he did not touch. They had agreed on only four questions: what work he had done in the group, what access he had, why he had sent the file now, and which part of the file he could prove.
“Don’t promise him secrecy you cannot control,” Halima told Juma.
“I know.”
“Say that after you say your name.”
Juma nodded. Since the file appeared, he had wanted an insider to explain everything in one sentence so he and Halima could have a simple villain. But the table held rows, dates, and account names, not a story that could clean their feelings.
Halima called. It rang twice before a man answered.
“Are you using speaker?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m Halima, and this is Juma.”
“I did not agree to have my name mentioned.”
“Then we won’t mention it in the group. But we cannot claim to verify the source without knowing how you were involved.”
There was a brief silence. The man said his first name was Peter. He had been a junior administrator in a large group using the KukuaPlus platform. He could see referral reports and support notices, but did not have access to transfer money or change records.
“Why send the table after the accounts were locked?” Juma asked.
“Because before the lock people were still adding money. When I sent a warning, another admin removed me.”
“Who did you send it to?”
“Two people whose numbers I had. One forwarded it to your group.”
Halima opened the file on the laptop. “Some columns are cut off here. Can you prove you saw them in the system?”
Peter said he could explain the report name, the export date, and his role at the time. He could not prove every accusation written in the margins. Halima asked him to send a screenshot showing the header and timestamp, not a newly photographed image.
Juma felt an urge to interrupt. “Do you know Kelvin was a recruiter?”
“I know he was an admin of one group. I don’t know whether he took a personal commission.”
“But your table shows—”
“The table shows referral levels and payouts. It does not show who took money into his pocket.”
Halima looked at Juma and put a finger on the notebook. “We will follow the records. Questions about Kelvin will not be answered by insulting Peter.”
Peter sent the screenshot. The header read FIRST PAYOUT POOL, not investment return. Juma leaned closer to the laptop.
“That is what I said,” he said.
“That is what the file says,” Halima replied. “The difference matters.”
Peter explained that he had seen the label in an old export, before KukuaPlus began using profit language in public messages. He did not know whether the label was an accounting term or an internal name for the pool. He said he did not want to turn an inference into a fact.
Juma opened another file from their group. “Why didn’t you send it earlier?”
“I was afraid. I had helped the admin bring in new members. I never told my family not to put in money, but I saw the warning. After the lock, I realized people were still being sent rescue-deposit links.”
“Were you paid for bringing referrals?” Halima asked.
“I received group-level bonuses. That is why I do not want to pretend I am a clean witness.”
Juma felt fresh anger. “So you were part of the system.”
“I was part of selling hope. I cannot say I stole every shilling. And I cannot say my hands did not touch the door through which people entered.”
Halima said nothing. His words were difficult because they did not give her a victory. Peter was not a spotless rescuer, but a source with information and a smaller guilt that still had to be placed in the record.
“Are you willing to have your name used in the complaint?” Juma asked.
“I cannot promise I won’t be harmed. But I will send the export I can prove.”
“And what you cannot?”
“Mark it as a claim, not a fact.”
Halima ended the call after receiving the metadata file and the description of Peter’s role. Before disconnecting, Peter said one sentence: “Do not make another deposit to get more reports. I saw people being pressured that way.”
The office became quiet.
Juma looked at the table. The first payout row had a label unlike “investment return.” In the lower corner was an upstream-pool account, but two numbers were hidden by the system.
“We’ll follow this,” he said.
“We’ll verify it first,” Halima replied. “There is a difference between finding a clue and having a case.”
Juma closed the accusations folder and kept the export with its metadata. Peter had sent the table after the lock because he wanted families to stop making top-ups, but he had also been part of the referral system. It was a hard truth, enough to continue the investigation without creating a false hero.
Before they left, Halima printed the first page of the export. Across the top were three words that changed the meaning of every payment they had been calling profit:
Juma asked Halima to keep the export with the original file, not only a screenshot. Halima agreed, then wrote at the top: “The source has explained his role; claims that cannot be verified remain claims.”
“Do you want to trust him?” Juma asked.
“I don’t want to trust him. I want to know which part of his information stands without him.”
Juma remembered how he had once given people confidence because he had successfully withdrawn money. Now he was learning that a record could matter even when the person who supplied it had interests and mistakes. Halima closed the laptop and said they would contact Peter again if the metadata showed a mismatch. Nobody would add money, pay an unlock fee, or promise recovery in exchange for another page of truth.
Juma wrote the label by hand on his paper. It was not a final answer, but it was the first piece of a new language: they would not call money profit until they knew where it came from. Halima closed the file and said the next step was to compare the label with the deposit timestamps.
“First payout pool.”
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