Pubdate: Sat, 18 Dec 2004
Source: East African Standard, The (Kenya)
Copyright: 2004 The East African Standard
Contact:  http://www.eastandard.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1743
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

POLICE LINK KEY PERSONALITIES TO THE SH5 BILLION DRUGS HAUL

Nairobi

Kenyan police could be on the verge of making a series of sensational 
arrests in the next few days after clues emerged linking several prominent 
personalities to the continent's biggest illicit drug haul.

A relative of a long-serving head of one of the country's key security 
agencies who retired in the 1990s and a son to a former Treasury Permanent 
Secretary lead a list of prominent society figures linked to the 
multi-billion shilling cocaine haul.

Police are also on the trail of a major city hotelier with links to a 
former power broker in the Kanu regime, impeccable sources close to the 
investigation told The Sunday Standard.

Kenyan security officers have established a dedicated team of elite 
officers to head the investigations into the sensational drug scandal to be 
led by the head of the Special Crime Prevention Unit, Mr Musa Yego.

The investigation is a complex multi-national effort, spreading over three 
continents.

Yesterday, police were understood to be making efforts to get the 
international police unit (Interpol) to help with the arrest of a Dutch 
woman resident in South Africa, allegedly of royal blood, who is married to 
one of the key Kenyan suspects in custody.

The suspect, who hails from Kiambu, is a relative of a prominent former 
security official and police claim it was he that had sub-let the villas 
where the bulk of the drugs in custody were netted.

Investigations by The Sunday Standard additionally revealed that the 
seizure of the drugs followed a long stakeout anchored by Kenya's National 
Security Intelligence Service at the Coast and with help from foreign agencies.

NSIS officials, who have the capacity to network with intelligence agencies 
from outside countries are understood to have camped in Mombasa and Malindi 
for the past eight months after receiving advance information of the drug 
haul's impending arrival.

The Police Commissioner, Major General Hussein Ali, described the seizure 
of the Colombian high-grade cocaine as the biggest ever in Africa.

Yesterday, Criminal Investigations Department (CID) head Joseph Kamau 
averred that all suspects linked to the drug syndicate would be arrested 
irrespective of their status in society.

"Let the public know that we are not going to leave any stone unturned," he 
said. "We will arrest anyone implicated. Just give us time."

He said all arrests related to the drugs haul would be followed by seizure 
of the accounts and assets linked to the suspects.

Over 13 suspects are already in police custody both in Kenya and Holland. 
Four of them were seized in Holland by Interpol.

Four Italians linked to the luxury coastal villas where 701 kilos of 
cocaine were seized are already in custody.

According to Yego, the team set up to head investigations into the drug 
haul would spread its search for the missing drugs to several suspicious 
container depots across the country.

They have already seized documents handled by various parties involved in 
clearing cargo at the port, which had yielded useful leads.

The team visited politician John Haroun Mwau's Pepe Inland Containers Depot 
on Friday for the second time in as many days but did not find any drugs.

He had earlier indicated that they believe there are more than four 
containers similar to the one they seized in Nairobi and Malindi still in 
the hands of drug barons.

They were however not certain that the missing containers contained 
cocaine, but wanted to ascertain their contents owing to their association 
with the drug-related containers.

The crack police squad, which has since been joined by other government 
agencies in the investigations, said it is using documents seized and 
handled by Pepe to establish a paper trail for the missing drugs. Pepe is 
Kenya's only privately owned inland container depot.

Customs officials who are among those in the team want to know how the 
containers were cleared through the Kilindini port in Mombasa and at the 
inland depot without the cocaine being detected.

It has since been established that the containers were unsealed at Mombasa, 
offloaded and the contents verified before they were loaded again onto a 
truck for onward transmission to the Pepe depot where they were again 
checked by Customs officials

Police said they would question port officials who were on duty when the 
containers arrived.

In Malindi, the elderly Italian couple arrested after the drug seizure at 
Casuarina yesterday sought the help of the Italian consulate to facilitate 
accurate translation of their statement.

Mr Angello Ricci and his wife Estella Frulli said they took the action to 
avoid contradictions in the statement.

Mr Roberto Macri, an Italian translator, was contacted by the divisional 
CID office to oversee the exercise, said the Coast PCIO Patrick Obimo.
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