On The Run: Ex-Java CEO Derrick Van Houten Jumps Bail As Courts Close In Over Multimillion Fraud

He was handed a lifeline that most accused persons can only dream of. Released on a Sh500,000 cash bail while facing criminal charges of obtaining money by false pretence, Derrick Cornelius Van Houten was trusted by the Milimani courts to return and face the music. He did not.

On Tuesday, Milimani Magistrate Caroline Mugo issued a warrant for Van Houten’s arrest after the court clerk called his name and was met with silence. His lawyer, too, was absent, leaving the prosecution fuming. The state prosecutor wasted no time, urging the court to act decisively against what had become a pattern of evasion by a man who, the record shows, has been gaming Kenya’s judicial system for well over two years.

Van Houten, a South African national who once commanded the sprawling Java House food empire as its chief executive, now faces the ignominy of being a wanted man. But his troubles in court are not new, and the brazenness of his conduct throughout this saga is nothing short of extraordinary.

“It took five months to locate him for arrest.” — State prosecutor, April 2024

The story of Van Houten’s alleged fraud begins not in a dark alley but in the gleaming executive corridors of one of Kenya’s most recognisable restaurant chains. Van Houten had been appointed Java House Africa Group chief executive in March 2021, crossing over from KFC East Africa, where he had built his regional food and beverage reputation over a long tenure. He came with credentials, with charm, and apparently, with ambition that extended well beyond his formal salary package.

Barely months into the job, in late 2021, he is alleged to have embarked on an audacious scheme targeting a Narok businessman named Awil Abdirahman Adulle. Adulle owns a petrol station in Narok and had first been approached as far back as 2018 by a Java House property manager with a proposal to host a Java outlet at his premises. The idea made commercial sense: a branded coffee shop on a fuel forecourt, the kind of low-risk franchise model that has made chains like Java rich.

What Adulle could not have anticipated was that by the time the deal moved to formal agreements in 2021, the man sitting across the table and taking his money was allegedly running a personal racket under cover of Java House’s corporate letterhead.

Between November 2021 and August 2022, Adulle transferred a total of Sh13.2 million to Van Houten across multiple transactions. The payments were made via M-Pesa and bank transfers and were supposed to cover construction renovation deposits, contractor fees, equipment procurement and the supply of coffee beans. The charge sheet is clinical in its precision: Van Houten obtained Sh7,911,000 from Adulle on diverse dates between October 1, 2021 and January 31, 2022, by falsely pretending he was in a position to approve and construct a Java Hotel in Narok, a fact he knew to be false.

A six-year lease agreement was signed in December 2021, lending the arrangement an air of corporate legitimacy. Yet by October 2022, Java House abruptly terminated the project, citing it as not commercially viable. Not a single brick had been laid. Not a cup of coffee had been poured. Van Houten promised Adulle a refund of Sh6.35 million. The refund never came.

“No Java House was ever built, and the accused gave me fake documentation. I have never seen anything from him.” — Awil Abdirahman Adulle, in court

But the Sh7.9 million fraud case is not even the full extent of the alleged criminality. Van Houten faces a separate charge of obtaining Sh3 million from the very same Adulle under a different scheme entirely. In this second case, he is accused of falsely pretending he could franchise to Adulle a Kukito or Java Express coffee shop business, an enterprise Van Houten knew he had no authority to deliver. Adulle deposited Sh2 million directly into Van Houten’s personal bank account and handed over Sh1 million in cash, based on a franchise price proposal of Sh6.9 million that Van Houten had personally drawn up.

The two cases, running concurrently, were the subject of an attempted dismissal by Van Houten’s legal team. That gambit failed spectacularly in September 2024 when Director of Public Prosecutions Renson Ingonga personally reviewed the case files and rejected the application to drop charges. Ingonga concluded there was sufficient evidence to take both matters to their logical conclusion, and directed that they be consolidated and referred to Magistrate Gilbert Shikwe for further directions.

By then, Van Houten had already demonstrated an alarming contempt for court process. The Star can reveal that as early as April 2024, the Milimani Chief Magistrate’s Court had already issued a first warrant for his arrest, after he failed to appear for plea-taking in the earlier sitting of his case. The prosecution told the court that it had taken five months to even locate him for the initial arrest. After that arrest, he was released on a police bond of just Sh50,000 before the higher cash bail was set. Within days, he was a no-show again.

His lawyers at that stage attempted to explain his absence by claiming he was ill and had been advised by a doctor to observe five days of bed rest. The court accepted that explanation once and directed him to return. He did not. A warrant was issued then. The pattern was already set.

Now, in March 2026, the same script has played out again, this time with considerably more judicial fury behind it, because a High Court has already spoken.

On February 12, 2026, Justice Josephine Mongare of the Milimani High Court delivered a comprehensive civil judgment against Van Houten that left him and his legal strategy in tatters. The judge found that Adulle had proved his case on a balance of probabilities, despite the fact that Van Houten and his co-defendant, Kiss Cosmetics Limited, chose not to call a single witness or produce a single document in their defence.

The court entered judgment for Adulle against Van Houten and Kiss Cosmetics Limited, jointly and severally, for Sh9,465,000 together with interest at the court rate of twelve per cent per annum from the date of judgment until full payment. The award comprised Sh6,840,000 verified through receipts as direct payments to Van Houten, and Sh2,625,000 paid to Kiss Cosmetics under a financing arrangement.

Van Houten had run a bold counter-narrative in the civil suit, arguing that he could not be held personally liable because he was at all times acting in his corporate capacity as Java House chief executive. He went further, filing a counterclaim demanding that Adulle pay him Sh19 million, asserting that the two men had separate personal business dealings entirely distinct from the Java transaction. Justice Mongare rejected both arguments without equivocation. Given the complete absence of any rebuttal evidence from Van Houten’s side, the court found the evidence against him compelling.

The court also found that the kiss Cosmetics connection, a financing and supply vehicle allegedly used to route money for coffee equipment and beans that were never delivered, formed part of the same fraudulent transaction rather than a separate commercial arrangement as Van Houten had claimed.

Van Houten’s total civil liability now stands at Sh9.465 million. His total criminal exposure across the two fraud cases amounts to Sh10.9 million. He has paid neither a cent of one nor attended court to answer the other.

Van Houten left Java House in November 2022, barely twenty months after joining the chain, under circumstances the company never publicly explained. His replacement, Priscilla Gathungu, was the third person to lead the company in fewer than four years. Industry analysts at the time noted that the high turnover of chief executives pointed to serious structural problems at Java, though the fraud allegations against Van Houten were not public knowledge until the criminal charges were laid. He subsequently described himself on LinkedIn as a turnaround specialist and chief executive of a venture called Bottomline, a title that sits uneasily against a mounting court record.

For Adulle, the ordeal has lasted nearly five years. He testified in the civil case that he had first been approached about hosting a Java outlet in 2018, long before Van Houten was even at the company. By the time Van Houten arrived and elevated the deal to C-suite level discussions, Adulle had every reason to believe the arrangement was legitimate. Meetings with senior Java executives, formal lease agreements bearing corporate seals, specific franchise pricing documents: all of it gave the transaction the outward appearance of orthodox commerce. Instead, he alleges, it was a sophisticated personal fraud by a man using a corporate job title as a fishing licence.

With a High Court judgment already entered against him and a criminal arrest warrant now in force, Van Houten’s options are narrowing rapidly. He cannot leave Kenya’s judicial reach by simply ignoring it, as the escalating court response demonstrates. The prosecution has made clear it will not be deterred. The DPP has personally declined to drop the charges. And Magistrate Caroline Mugo, faced with yet another empty chair where the accused should have been sitting, moved without hesitation.

The warrant is live. The clock is running. The Narok businessman who put his faith and his millions into a coffee shop that was never built is still waiting for justice. And somewhere in Nairobi, a former restaurant chief executive who once told the Business Daily that franchising was a good model if you want to grow a brand quickly, is apparently testing that theory on the courts.