- The route is notorious in trafficking narcotics as many such cases have been detected in the past two months
- Police say the marijuana originates from Ethiopia and is consumed locally
A police officer was Friday arrested as he was trafficking 5 kilogrammes of marijuana from Isiolo to Nairobi.
The officer who is attached to the Diplomatic Police Unit was driving his private car along Isiolo-Moyale highway when a multi-agency team intercepted him.
He was driving with his son aged five when he was nabbed at about 1 am.
Police said they searched his car and recovered the narcotics stashed in the dashboard. He was also armed with a Ceska pistol loaded with 14 bullets.
Officials manning the roadblock said a sniffer dog detected the six bales of the narcotics weighing five kilos with an estimated street value of Sh150,000.
The officer was detained at the local police station as his son was later picked up by her mother. Police handling the case said the officer was expected in court to face charges of trafficking the narcotics.
The arrest of the officer and seizure of the narcotics is not new on the route.
It is the latest incident to happen as the narcotics which originate from Ethiopia flood most urban areas in Kenya.
Several arrests and seizures have been made in 2021 in a trend that has worried officials.
Officials say the traffickers also use oil tankers to haul their consignments into the country
Most of the narcotics originate from Ethiopia where they are packaged for the market in Nairobi and other major towns.
Police say the traffickers use the porous Kenya-Ethiopia border to get their illegal consignment into the country.
The border town of Moyale in northern Kenya is an entry point for large hauls of bhang widely grown in southern Ethiopia.
Once the bhang leaves Shashamane, it heads down south to the border points of Moyale, Sololo, Corolla, Uran and Dukana. Others use Mandera, Wajir, Garissa route.
The other route runs from Funannyata in Sololo, Marsabit county, to the Yamicha plains of Merti subcounty in Isiolo.
They take the consignments to Eastleigh, Majengo and Mlango Kubwa for repackaging and distribution.
In March 2020, detectives arrested a man with 56 bales of bhang, packaged like second-hand clothes. The consignment weighed 466kgs.
A lorry driver was also arrested after he was found transporting 135 bales of bhang from Ethiopia. The narcotics were hidden inside a fuel tanker.
In the past two years, more than 10 fuel tankers transporting bhang worth more than Sh200 million have been seized by officers on the highways.
Sometimes the smugglers hide the rolls of bhang in the spare wheels or make additional compartments underneath the lorries and buses.
Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti said they are focusing on the routes to address the menace.
“This is ruining our people here and we are determined to tame the trend,” Kinoti said.
Cases of narcotic consumption have been on the rise hence the high demand. Police have since laid several roadblocks on major roads to tame the trafficking.