Police from anti narcotics unit are holding three suspects after they were found trafficking a kilo of heroin valued at Sh3 million.
According to police, the suspects had been operating across the country and beyond in the guise of engaging in legitimate businesses.
One of the suspects identified as Swalehe Yusuf Ahmed has two related cases pending before court. He had been released on bond.
He is linked to trafficking of 105kg of heroin estimated at Sh285 million, money which he launders alongside various operatives that work for him, police said.
The seizure and arrest came after police were tipped of the operations of the gang in the area, which locals said was full of impunity.
The suspects were to be produced in court Thursday for a ruling on if police can hold them longer to complete their investigations into the incident.
This is the latest seizure of the narcotics to happen in the area. Police say there has been an increase in cases of drug trafficking and consumption in the country.
Officials say whereas Kenya was in the past seen as just a passing stop on the trafficking route to Europe, it is now becoming a major destination in itself for heroin, with addiction rising as tonnes of powder pass through East Africa.
Cases of narcotics trafficking and consumption have been on the rise in the past years amid campaigns to address the same.
The quantity of dangerous drugs seized increased to 10,909 kilograms in 2020 from 6,533 kilograms in 2019.
Heroin is one of the most trafficked and consumed narcotics at the Coast and the country at large.
Other most trafficked and abused narcotics include cocaine and other psychotropic substances.
Apart from these narcotics, alcohol, miraa, prescription drugs, tobacco, marijuana and inhalants are also widely consumed.
Police say traffickers now use roads as opposed to airports to carry out their business.
The most commonly trafficked narcotics from Tanzania and through Uganda is heroin.
In 2019, the then European Union Ambassador to Kenya Simon Mordue said the Kenyan port of Mombasa accounted for 30 per cent of illegal heroin smuggled into the EU market.
Kenyan security agencies seized the second-biggest haul of cocaine weighing 100 kilos and valued at Sh598 million in 2016 in Mombasa that was disguised as sugar. The case was dismissed in court.
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