SUSPECTED foreign drug baron was on Wednesday evening found dead in a Mombasa hotel room where police impounded 24.5 kilogrammes of heroin with a street value of Sh50 million.
Lithuanians Riekumas Ricards, 35 and Kudirka Gytis, 21, were in Kenya on a tourist visa. They checked in to Mwananchi hotel at Ganjoni estate, Mombasa town on Wednesday morning with a Kenyan woman Ann Muthoni, 22.
After a few hours, the woman called reception telling them one tourist was unconscious.
At Coast region police headquarters yesterday, County police boss Robert Kitur said police received a call from the hotel management reporting the death.
Police found Ricards dead and Gytis unconscious in the hotel room together with Muthoni.
The police searched and found the drugs wrapped in six parcels stacked and sealed on the bottom of two suitcases containing clothes.
Gytis survived after being treated at Coast general hospital.
“We received a call from the hotel management reporting the death of a tourist. Police moved swiftly and that is when we found one tourist dead while the other was unconscious. A Kenyan woman was in their company at the hotel room. Police searched the room and found the drugs,” said Kitur.
The two men flew into Kenya from Lithuania on October 4, from Lithuania on a two weeks tourist visa to Kenya.They were due to leave the country today (October 18). Muthoni reportedly comes from Eldoret.
“The two foreigners had valid documents which means they were legally in Kenya. They entered the country through Moi International Airport in Mombasa. We are happy to have nabbed the drugs,” said Kitur.
He however said the two could have procured the drugs in Mombasa.
“We suspect they did not come with the drugs because they would have been arrested at the airport where the drugs would have been detected by the scanners. We are however investigating to find more about them,” he said.
On Tuesday, there was speculation that two tourists had disappeared from the airport after escaping security scans. Kitur dismissed the rumours.
He said police are holding the surviving tourist and the woman for investigation as they await a doctor’s report on the cause of death before arraigning them in court.
Ricards' body is at Coast provincial general hospital.