Police recover cocaine valued at Sh100 million in Mombasa

Detectives Friday seized a consignment of cocaine worth Sh100 million from a house in Utange, Mombasa County.

The consignment, some that had been packaged ready for market, was seized following a tip-off to police.

A woman believed to be a mule was arrested during the operation.

The weight of the drugs was not immediately established.

In an operation conducted by sleuths drawn from the Transnational Organized Crimes and the Anti-Narcotics units, the female suspect identified as Nuru Murshid Mahfud, 29, was arrested.

The sleuths are yet to establish whether the drug which was carefully packaged in 35 sachets and concealed in suitcases was meant for local consumption or was on transit to a different destination, the DCI said.

Police said a hunt for the woman’s accomplices is ongoing and that samples of the narcotics had been sent to experts at the Chemistry and Toxicology units based at the DCI National Forensic Laboratory, for more tests on the highly addictive drug.

This is the biggest recovery yet in as many months.

This means the trafficking lords are making a comeback after a long time.

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.

He said they had engaged Kenyan authorities to handle the issue.

Mordue said they were working closely with the various agencies to reverse this trend and get intelligence and the police to nab the peddlers.

The revelations were not new to some government officials who know the trend of the business.

Most of the heroin in the country originates from Afghanistan through the Indian Ocean while cocaine originates from South America.

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 however later dismissed in court.