Heroin worth Sh1.8bn found in seized ship

Heroin valued at close to Sh1.8 billion has been discovered in a merchant ship impounded by the Kenya Navy two weeks ago.

Anti-narcotics officers in Mombasa on Tuesday seized the 342.67 kg of the hard drugs from the suspicious ship, MV Alnoor (B.Bushehr Amin Darya), which was intercepted in Lamu waters on July 3.

On Tuesday last week, the ship was found to have traces of heroin in the cargo.

And yesterday, the head of the Anti-Narcotics Police Unit in Mombasa, Mr Khamis Massa, said security officers found the contraband cargo in the ship’s diesel reservoir.

“So far we have been able to recover 342.67 kilogrammes of heroin; we got 341.7kgs from the diesel reservoir in addition to the 974 grammes we earlier seized. We are continuing our search and we have recovered 28,600 litres of water which actually tested positive with heroin,” he said.

He said the drugs had been mixed with 1,800 litres of diesel in the reservoir in an attempt to conceal it. Police were yet to establish whether the ship’s crew had been trying to destroy the drug by mixing it with the fuel.

Nine crew members were arrested when the ship was intercepted and are likely to be charged with attempts to conceal evidence if that they mixed the heroin with diesel before their arrest.

Of the haul seized, at 787 sachets were intact and the police were holding as exhibits. Officers also took samples from 21 bags for further analysis with the government chemist.

Police officers were on Monday last week granted 14 days to investigate the nine crew members of the ship. The nine foreigners appeared before Senior principal Magistrate Justice Kituko to answer to charges of drug trafficking.

Nine crew members are still under heavy guard at the Port Police Station while their ship is now under 24-hour watch from the navy.