Five thugs captured in CCTV footage assaulting members of the public in Mombasa’s old town area are in police custody.
The five were arrested on Friday.
The videotape of the 15 young men went viral on social media leading to calls for action from a section of Kenyans.
In the footage, the group is seen assaulting two men who were going about their businesses on April 19, 2022.
Following the incident, a group of officers drawn from Mombasa’s Central Police Station, backed up by DCI’s Anti Terror Police Unit (ATPU) detectives mounted an operation to arrest the suspects to book.
The five suspected thugs captured on the footage were arrested separately in the Kibokoni, Kikowani and Makadara areas of Mombasa town.
The suspected include Noordin Mohamed, Brian Ogutu, Vidich Nzilu, Ahmed Ali and Abdala Mohamed.
Detectives have since established that the five belong to a recently formed notorious squad known as the ‘Haipingwi’ gang, responsible for the sudden rise of crime in Mombasa’s Old town.
"Undercover detectives drawn from DCI’s elite teams are now on a mission to completely wipe out the ‘Haipingwi’ gang once and for all," DCI said.
Meanwhile, the remaining thugs who are still at large have been warned to either surrender or suffer a similar fate as what befell Mathare’s infamous Katombi gang.
