Lawyers Demand Files on Gates-Linked GM Mosquito Release as Epstein Scandal Rocks Billionaire’s Kenya Operations

Nairobi firm fires legal warning at Health Ministry demanding full disclosure on genetically modified insects as fresh Epstein documents expose Gates’ ties to convicted sex offender

The timing could not be more explosive. Just days after damning revelations about Bill Gates’ extensive relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein rocked the world, a Nairobi law firm has demanded the Kenyan government come clean on any plans to release genetically modified mosquitoes in the country, raising fresh questions about the billionaire’s shadowy activities in Africa.

In a scorching legal demand letter dated February 10 and received by the Ministry of Health the same day, Dahir, Affey, Abdullahi & Associates Advocates LLP has invoked the Access to Information Act to force officials to reveal whether Kenya is facilitating lab-engineered mosquito programmes that could unleash irreversible ecological catastrophe on millions of unsuspecting citizens.

The bombshell legal salvo comes as Gates faces unprecedented global scrutiny following the release of nearly three million pages of US Justice Department files exposing his close association with Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges. The documents, released on January 31, reveal that Gates met with Epstein numerous times even after the latter’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, and include explosive unverified allegations in draft emails that Epstein claims to have written about facilitating sexual encounters for Gates.

Gates has vehemently denied the allegations as “absolutely absurd and completely false,” telling Australian media last week he was “foolish” to spend time with Epstein and expressing regret for “every minute” of their association. His ex-wife Melinda French Gates, who divorced him in 2021, has said the Epstein connection was a factor in ending their marriage and that the latest document release brought back “some very, very painful times.”

But the Epstein scandal is only the latest in a string of controversies dogging the Gates Foundation’s operations in Kenya and across Africa. In April 2025, following massive public outcry and a legal challenge from the Law Society of Kenya, the foundation was forced to withdraw from a sweetheart deal that had granted it diplomatic immunity typically reserved for foreign embassies and UN agencies.

Critics had asked a searing question: What exactly is this billionaire from Seattle doing in Kenya that he needs immunity from the law?

Now, with the latest legal demand, three Kenyan citizens represented by the Nairobi law firm are asking an even more disturbing question: Is the government secretly partnering with Gates-linked entities to release genetically engineered mosquitoes into the Kenyan environment without proper public consultation or legal safeguards?

Acting for Abdulhakim Dahir, Omar Faruk Maalim and Abdulwaheed Mohamed Affey, the lawyers warn in language that pulls no punches that gene-drive or genetically modified mosquitoes could trigger “ecological disruption, disease-pattern shifts, resistance dynamics, cross-border dissemination, or long-tail health and environmental harms whose costs are borne by Kenyan communities for decades.”

The letter cites reports and public discourse suggesting Kenya may be hosting, partnering in, permitting or enabling activities involving lab-engineered mosquitoes, including genetically modified mosquitoes, gene-drive mosquitoes, sterile male release technologies or any comparable genetically engineered vector-control interventions intended to suppress, replace or eliminate malaria-vector mosquito populations.

While the Gates Foundation issued a denial on February 7 claiming it does not release mosquitoes or operate laboratories that do so in Kenya, the foundation has been a major funder of genetically modified mosquito research globally. Research institutions in Kenya, including the Kenya Medical Research Institute working with Imperial College London, have been preparing for potential releases of GM mosquitoes to combat malaria.

The lawyers are demanding immediate answers on whether any lab-engineered mosquito programme exists or has been proposed in Kenya, including full documentary records covering planning, procurement, memoranda of understanding, importation, contained laboratory rearing, semi-field trials, field trials, release preparations and community sensitisation activities.

Most dramatically, they are calling for an immediate halt to any such programme until the public is fully informed and proper legal procedures are followed.

The legal challenge invokes Section 19 of the Biosafety Act, which prohibits introduction of genetically modified organisms into the environment without written approval from the National Biosafety Authority and requires public notification and opportunity for representations. The lawyers also cite Section 37 of the Public Health Act, arguing vector control is a core Ministry of Health responsibility.

In a pointed reference that seems to address the Gates Foundation’s recent failed attempt to secure diplomatic immunity, the letter warns: “Where a private foreign or domestic entity drives a project of this magnitude through opaque instruments, donor arrangements, confidentiality clauses, purported privileges, or negotiated immunities and indemnities, the constitutional premise of accountable governance is placed at risk.”

The lawyers want to know whether any entity undertaking or funding such ventures enjoys special privileges, immunities, indemnities or liability limitations insulating it from suit, regulatory sanction, investigation or civil compensation.

“It is not sufficient for the public to be told that experts have approved,” the letter states bluntly. “The law requires lawful approvals, transparent reasons, verifiable risk governance, public participation, and enforceable liability if harm occurs.”

The firm has given the Ministry 21 days to respond but requests prioritised processing given the potential direct impact on life, health and environmental safety. Failure to respond substantively, the lawyers warn, will force their clients to pursue statutory enforcement through the Commission on Administrative Justice and urgent court intervention for mandatory disclosure and restraining orders.

The controversy over genetically modified mosquitoes is part of a broader pattern of Gates Foundation activities in Africa that have drawn fierce criticism. The foundation’s agricultural programmes, particularly through the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa which has received at least 872 million dollars from Gates, have been accused of promoting industrial agriculture methods that benefit large corporations at the expense of local practices and ecosystems.

African faith leaders issued an open letter in 2024 demanding reparations from the Gates Foundation, while reports indicate that AGRA programmes have increased food insecurity rather than alleviating it.

The foundation has also faced controversy over vaccine programmes. In 2014, an experimental HPV vaccine trial in India that was partly funded by Gates was shut down by the government after a parliamentary committee criticised the project as designed to advance the interests of Big Pharma, with reports of severe side effects and deaths among participants.

As the Epstein files continue to reverberate globally, casting fresh shadows over Gates’ philanthropic empire, the legal challenge in Kenya represents a growing African pushback against what critics describe as the billionaire’s colonial-style interventions in public health, agriculture and biotechnology across the continent.

The Ministry of Health had not responded to requests for comment by the time of going to press. The ministry’s official stamp shows the lawyers’ letter was received on February 10, 2026.

With the world now scrutinising Gates’ judgment and associations following the Epstein revelations, and with Kenyans demanding transparency about genetically modified organisms being introduced into their environment, the pressure is mounting for answers about exactly what the Gates Foundation has been doing in Kenya and who, if anyone, is holding this unelected billionaire accountable.

The law firm warns that this is not a political question but a rule-of-law question. “Kenya cannot lawfully outsource public-health experimentation or environmental interventions while also outsourcing legal accountability,” the letter states.

As one critic quoted in investigative journalist Tim Schwab’s book “The Bill Gates Problem” put it, the diplomatic immunity saga exposed the antidemocratic influence and power of Gates, who can shape policy decisions affecting millions without any democratic mandate.

Now, with genetically modified mosquitoes potentially at stake, Kenyans are asking whether their government has once again given a foreign billionaire carte blanche to experiment on their country without proper oversight, transparency or accountability.

The answers, if they come, may determine whether Kenya charts a path toward genuine sovereignty over its public health and environmental policies, or whether it remains a testing ground for controversial technologies pushed by unaccountable philanthropic empires.