So this said crypto whale has caused a buzz in Kenya for sending millions dollars to Kenyan students, the funds are getting frozen by the authorities due to suspicion of money laundering... what I don't understand is why he is not sending the funds in Bitcoins to get around the authorities
The whole point is to send the BTC directly to the wallet address you completely own. Not to be sent directly to a centralized exchange, or directly sending the whole 1 M USD fiat to the bank account.
Once the BTC is in your own wallet, THEN you can send parts of it (either in BTC or USD stablecoin) to the exchange to then get it in USD.
Even so, it still has to be declared, otherwise it can be seized. This crypto whale seems to have handled this without knowing the bank account deposit limits in this persons account. No wonder it triggered the AML systems and the authorities froze the account.