Police arrest two with 3kgs of cocaine in Mombasa

A multi-agency team of detectives arrested two suspects and recovered 3 kilograms of cocaine in Kisauni, which would pass as Mombasa’s drug trafficking headquarters on Saturday.

The two were arrested after a night-long operation in areas of Nairobi and Mombasa conducted by Anti-Narcotics and DCI sleuths.

Suleiman Juma Mujibu Mjikenda, 47, and Saady Bashur Omar Dawa, 59 were nabbed in Barsheba area and are held at Port Police Station after being questioned at Coast Provincial Headquarters for hours.

Mjikenda is a notorious drug trafficker who has escaped police dragnet severally.

“A team of police raided the residence of the accused and upon search they recovered a suitcase containing assorted clothing and upon further search they discovered false bottoms on the sides of the suitcase which upon breaking they found a whitish substance believed to be a narcotic drug,” a police report partly reads.

Tests by a government analyst, the substance was found to be cocaine weighing 2979.4 grams of street value Ksh 11,917,600.

“We will call you later because we still interrogating the suspects,” Coast DCI boss Washington Njiiru said while confirming the seizure.

Reports indicate that the detectives had trailed the traffickers from Brazil where they sourced the drugs to Juba in South Sudan, through Kampala Uganda, to Nairobi and finally to its final destination Mombasa.

The seizure follows months-long investigations over the illicit drugs business in the Mombasa city, referred to as ‘gateway to East Africa.’

Police sources say Mjikenda has been operating a well-organized drugs distribution network in Coastal towns of Mombasa and Malindi targeting local users and tourists particularly those from Italy.

A village elder based in Mtwapa is said to be a key member in the distribution chain and a flamboyant woman staying in Nyali who oversees Mjikenda's narcotic distribution network in Mombasa and Watamu.

Mjikenda is said to be a Tanzanian and circumstances under which he acquired a Kenyan Identification Card is still under investigation by the Immigration department.

Detectives also seized travel documents and flight tickets for other couriers who were to travel to bring bigger consignments of cocaine.

Police are trailing Nasim Athman Mohamed, a middle-aged woman from Kenya who picked the drugs from San Paulo in Brazil.

Detectives are also looking for more members of the syndicate who are well known Mombasa businessmen who work behind the scenes and are said to be harvesting millions as drug proceeds, police sources who spoke to the Star in confidence say.

The cocaine seizure, the first this year, lifts lid on complex underworld operations of narcotics trade in Mombasa, home of brother-duo Baktash Akasha and Ibrahim Akasha who are awaiting sentencing in New York for being leaders of decades-long narcotics cartel that had built the biggest drug trafficking trade in East Africa with networks across Afghanistan, Europe and US.