Drug ship ‘in Kenya waters for 10 days’

A ship laden with more than three tonnes of heroin had anchored in Kenya’s territorial waters for more than 10 days — from where local and international drug traffickers purchased the drug — before police intercepted a consignment worth more than Sh200 million.

Anti-narcotics police officers, who spoke to the Nation on Tuesday on condition that they are not named, said among the buyers were a suspected Nigerian international drug baron based in Nairobi, Somalis linked to piracy and a Mombasa-based businessman.

“Speedboats were used to ferry the heroin from the ship which came from Pakistan,” one of the detectives said.

Police commissioner Mathew Iteere has said investigations into the heroin saga are ongoing and more suspects are likely to be arrested.

“Investigations are still going on. We want to know their (suspects) connections outside Kenya. We are talking to them since it’s clear they were not working alone,” the police boss had said.

It also emerged that the seizure of the 102 kilogrammes of the drug haul was a result of differences between the drug kingpin and the ship owners following a change of plans on who they should hand over the heroin.

“Following the sudden turn of events the kingpin alerted members of the Special Crimes Unit who moved in and intercepted a heroin consignment which had left the ship,” the detective told the Nation.

He added that the seized heroin was part of a one-tonne haul that had left the ship in different boats. The whereabouts of the other consignments is not known.

The disclosure that the illicit drug trade had happened for more than 10 days in Kenya’s territorial waters has raised questions about the surveillance of the country’s coastline which is supposed to be monitored by the Kenya Navy around the clock.

The seizure of the heroin haul came at a time when diplomatic cables released by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks revealed that Kenya is among African countries which have been turned into playgrounds for international drug traffickers.

Bungling investigations

The cable said that the drug trade in the country was not only facilitated by security personnel, but also influential businessmen and top politicians and their relatives.

It added that police and the prosecutors had been bungling investigations into drug-trafficking.

There was also a new twist to the charges preferred against two of the six suspects — Mr Hassan Ibrahim and Mr Yusuf Hassan — who were separately charged with possessing firearms and ammunition without licences, as evidence showed that they had valid firearm certificates issued to them by the Chief Firearms Licensing Officer.

An officer close to the investigation told the Nation that the firearm certificates found with the suspects were analysed and found to be genuine.