Sportpesa, operated through Pevans East Africa Limited, built a reputation as one of Kenya’s most recognisable betting brands, once ranking among the nation’s most profitable enterprises and sitting just behind Safaricom in popularity surveys.
License suspension sparks tax dispute
The company’s licence was suspended by the Betting Control and Licensing Board in July 2019 after the Kenya Revenue Authority raised tax disputes that were reported to involve amounts measured in the tens of billions of shillings.
Following the suspension, a detailed dossier observed by Business Report describes a systematic hand‑over of Pevans’ entire operating infrastructure—including the brand, paybills, short codes, customer database, staff and premises—to a newly incorporated entity called Milestone Games Limited, with no payment recorded for the transferred assets.
Safaricom’s role in paybill transfer
Central to the feasibility of that hand‑over was the involvement of Safaricom PLC, whose network services were required to activate the financial channels that underpinned Sportpesa’s betting transactions.
Pevans had been using two M‑Paya paybill numbers, 955100 and 955700, which processed the bulk of Sportpesa’s betting activity; the dossier alleges that these numbers, together with their associated short codes and USSD access, were reassigned to Milestone Games on 30 October 2020.
On 20 August 2020, the Kenya Revenue Authority secured preservation orders over Pevans’ bank accounts and the two paybills through High Court Miscellaneous Case No. 025 of 2020, and those orders remained effective until 5 December 2020, meaning they were still active when Safaricom allegedly activated the numbers for Milestone.
At the same time, Pevans/Sportpesa was pursuing an appeal (Court of Appeal No. 471 of 2020) against the Betting Control and Licensing Board, Safaricom and other parties concerning the original licence dispute, and Safaricom had filed submissions in that proceeding, indicating that it was concurrently a litigant against the same interests it later assisted.
The transfer of paybills and short codes for a gaming operator normally requires prior clearance from the Communications Authority of Kenya and the gambling regulator that was then the BCLB; the dossier states that no such approvals were obtained before Safaricom activated the numbers for Milestone.
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According to the account, Safaricom completed the activation within roughly a day of receiving Milestone’s application, a speed that contrasts sharply with the two‑week standard turnaround reported for other operators.
In a contrasting example, Airtel Kenya, which also held Sportpesa‑related short codes, refused to transfer them to Milestone, citing the same legal requirements that the dossier says Safaricom ignored, thereby demonstrating that compliance was an available option.
The Karungaru Letter, an affidavit from Wilson Karungaru, the sole natural‑person director of Milestone at the time, records that he applied to Safaricom on 29 October 2020 for the paybill transfer and that the numbers were activated the following day; the document also notes his unease about funds being “disbursed to strange entities… unknown to me,” suggesting internal concerns about possible money‑laundering.
Karungaru later stepped down from his directorship, citing a lack of visibility into the company’s operations, an action that shows the opacity surrounding Milestone’s management during the transition.
Licensing irregularities after handover
Beyond the initial transfer, the dossier points to a second irregularity: Milestone continued to operate and advertise as a licensed BCLB operator throughout 2021 and 2022 under Licence No. 000205, a licence that a BCLB communication dated 31 July 2022 indicates had actually been issued to Hardwick Limited, trading as Bollywood Casino.
If the timeline is correct, Safaricom would have continued to host Milestone’s betting and jackpot services on its network while the entity lacked a valid gaming licence, a circumstance that routine compliance checks should have revealed given the volume of prior litigation between the predecessor entities.
The dossier argues that Safaricom could not plausibly claim ignorance of the ownership overlap because Ronald Karauri and Francis Kiarie held directorships at Pevans and were undisclosed majority beneficial owners of Milestone through Selinium Limited, and because a Pevans company secretary, also serving as Milestone’s legal officer, had previously filed numerous cases against Safaricom on behalf of Sportpesa‑linked businesses.
Over a decade of litigation involving Sportpesa‑related entities and Safaricom further weakens the notion that the telco was unaware of the individuals behind Milestone, suggesting a level of informed participation in the transfer process.
