Donovan Hackart

Donovan is a Principal Associate at ALN Kenya | Anjarwalla & Khanna and a member of the forensics, risk and compliance department. He is a highly accomplished and versatile investigator and security operations manager with over 9 years’ experience and is a qualified polygraph examiner with over 3,000 polygraphs conducted across Africa.

Donovan has conducted investigations across several African countries and specializes in brand protection, counter surveillance measures, risk management and corporate intelligence. He has led various investigations and has assisted in several high priority cases.

• American Polygraph Association

2020: Executive Diploma in Private Investigations, International Career Institute, United Kingdom

2019: Diploma in Business Management, International Career Institute, United Kingdom

2015: BTEC Level 4 in Security Management, Control Risks, Kenya

2015: Diploma in Psychophysiological Detection of Deception, American International Institute of Polygraph, South Africa

Sep 2021 – Date: Principal Associate, Anjarwalla & Khanna Forensics, Nairobi

Aug 2013 – Mar 2020: Manager, Salama Fikira Group Limited, Nairobi

Jan 2013 – Jul 2013: Investigator, Halliday Finch Limited, Nairobi

Apr 2012 – Dec 2013: Close Protection Officer, Expro Protection Services, South Africa

Forensic Investigation

• Acting for a Non Profit orginisation in Sierra Leone in connection with an investigation into their procurement proccesses, verifying a sample of transactions to establish if all the procedures were followed during each transaction,confirm whether the amounts on the purchase orders matches the corresponding documents and highlight any irregularities found during the investigation.

Prior to joining A&K:

• Acting for a Multinational firm operating in the FMCG space in Kenya in connection with an investigation into a syndicate involved in stealing large amounts of products from their factory and during transit, including conducting surveillance on the factory and selected vehicles transporting their fast moving products, identifying individuals involved, etsablishing how the products were being stolen and developing strategies to disrupt their operations and effect arrests.
• Acting for a private client in Kenya in connection with investigation into the murder of a well known ivory trade investigative journalist, including investigating the matter to identify the susupects, conducting polygraphs at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations offices in Nairobi, obtaining all relevant statements and establishing the motive of the crime.
• Acting for a Multinational firm operating a tea plantation in Kenya in connection with an investigation into a procurement fraud, including looking ito various suspicious transactions involving the contruction of an airstrip, water resevoir, tea extraction plant. There was also a strong focus on the engineering department as majority of the projects fell under them. We were to establish which members of staff were involved and the service providers involved in commiting the fraudulant trannsactions,conducting site visits to compare the end result with the procurement documentation and bill of quantities documents.

Tanzania

• Acting for a multinational firm operating in the FMCG space in Tanzania in connection with an investigation into a syndicate involved in counterfeiting the client’s products, including conducting test purchases in various locations around Dar Es Salaam and identifying entities selling the counterfeit products, leading to seizures of the counterfeits.
• Acting for a Multinational firm operating in the Mobile Phone industry in Tanzania in connection with an investigation into counterfeit products in the market, including conducting test purchases in various locations around Dar Es Salaam, capturing covert videos of purchases and identifying entities selling the counterfeits, leading to several seizures of the counterfeits.
• Acting for a multinational firm operating in the FMCG space in Tanzania, in connection with an investigation regarding products that were being stolen from the client’s factory and being sold at a fraction of the price, including looking into tracking of the identified trucks involved and identifying where the products were being offloaded. We managed to place trackers on several trucks and were able to establish the travel patterns which lead to identifying the drop off zones. The Client was able to mitigate the problem which also led to a change in transport service providers.
• Acting for a Large local firm operating in the FMCG space in Tanzania in connection with identifying suspected surveillance equipment planted by external parties, including conducting a sweep of the entire office building as well as the CEO’s homes and vehicles.

Corporate Intelligence & Due Diligence

• Acting for solar energy firm in Kenya in connection with a due diligence review on a potential partner in a business venture in Sierra Leone and Somalia, including performing detailed internet searches on the partner on negative media checks, background confirmation, business relations and associations, litigation history, sanction checks and other relevant publicly available information,conduct country and sector risk assessments and validating the KYC documentation provided by the partner.
• Acting for a financial institution in Uganda in connection with a due diligence services for all entities applying for licenses to operate financial technology (“Fintech”) companies in the country, including revieing the corperate structure information,public filings, finanicial standings, adverse media,sanctionsl and watchlists, reputational risks and information on all top executives and shareholders
• Acting for a financial institution in Kenya in connection with asset tracing services for individuals who defaulted on loans and and delibrerately invested the clients funds in failing companies, including assisting the client in identifying methods to recover their funds from these individuals.

Polygraph testing

Prior to joining A&K:

• Acting for a financial institution in Kenya in connection with honesty maintenance and specific subject testing services, including conducting polygraph tests on individuals from various department to ensure that they were not involved in any activitiy that would be against the companies interests,polygraph specific individulas identified to be involved in fraudulant activity within the firm.
• Acting for an e-hailing company in Kenya in connection with polygraphing current and tentative drivers as part of an honesty maintenance and pre employment program focused on adding an extra level of verification to their vetting process.
• Acting for a Multinational firm operating in the FMCG space in Nigeria in connection with polygraphing the security staff at their sites as part of an honesty maintenance program which formed part of an ongoing contract which required bi-annual honesty maintenance testing.