Kampala — Joshua Kalebu, a Ugandan engineer accused of fraud worth $8m from US authorities, is the latest casualty of Ugandan cooperation with international community against white-collar crime.

Security sources say US authorities had stationed him in Seattle, Washington state, where he worked as a civil servant. He had been on international arrest warrant.

Kalebu was a controversial engineer who ran into problems with National Water and Sewerage Corporation-a water utility monopoly- because he started a water services firm. Ugandan authorities arrested him on allegations of possession of a false passport. He had dropped Kalebu as his name (in fact, Kalebu was his father's name)

He was serving a six months jail sentence when US authorities picked him with help of a relative.

Kalebu joins growing list of Ugandans netted in international effort against white-collar crime. In 2000 High Court ordered a wealthy businessperson, Henry Lunko to pay $1.6m to a Chinese entrepreneur he defrauded and ran back to Uganda. His property, which included several buildings in strategic places in Kampala, was attached.

Earlier on in 1998, the ex-Kampala Mayor Nasser Sebaggala served a two-year sentence in US for a $100,000 fraud.

The war gathered momentum with the collapse of International Credit Bank, which was allegedly one of the most notorious in Uganda in money laundering.

The momentum is gathering strength at a time when Uganda forex market is increasingly dominated by remittances from Ugandans abroad.

In 2001, the remittances nearly doubled to $780m from the previous $400m according to government statistics.

However, not all remittances are considered good money.Morever, much has fed construction business pushing the ratio of construction to income per capita to 1.5:1, according to government statistics.

With US assistance, Central Bank is putting up a system that will allow the bank to monitor effectively its forex market, which grew from$2bn in 2000 to $2.4bn in 2001 according to Central Bank statistics.

Commercial banks are under instructions to notify government if there is transfer of $100,000 or risk being accused of complicity. In October 2000, Standard Chartered Bank turned back $40m a sender from Boston attempted to wire to Uganda.

Meantime, some countries, which Ugandans consider lucrative prospects, have tightened visa requirements.

Some Ugandans have travelled to Japan posing as business persons but end up doing odd jobs or engaged in thefts and fraud. Japan is now tough.