- More attention is being put on the route to stop the trend, police said.
- This involves multi-agency teams that have been deployed on the more than 700 kilometers stretch to adddress the issue.
A sitting Member of the County Assembly was Thursday arrested with 57 stones of bhang in Isiolo Town.
Police from the Transnational Organized Crimes Unit and a multi-agency team arrested the MCA and an accomplice on the outskirts of Isiolo town in an operation.
The bhang was stashed in a house after it had been transported from Ethiopia, police said.
According to the police, the two were flagged down within Isiolo town while driving a motor vehicle make Toyota Land Cruiser before the team proceeded to the house of Nura Abdi Diba at Kambi Garba Estate on the outskirts of Isiolo town where six gunny bags containing the 57 stones of the prohibited herb were recovered.
The exhibits were escorted to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters for further processing as the suspects underwent investigative interviewing.
The seizure and arrests show how lucrative the business is. There were efforts to release the two on bond pending the probe.
This is the latest such recovery to be made in the area.
Most of the bhang seized in the region originates in Ethiopia.
Moyale town, the largest of the trading centres stands out as the capital of contraband that includes smuggling of Kenya’s popular variety of bhang.
Apart from Moyale, other border points used by the crooks to smuggle in Ethiopian bhang include Sololo, Uran, Forolle and Dukana.
Police say dealers use peddlers to bring the bhang into Kenya in small batches using unofficial or unpatrolled routes to smuggle in the contraband especially at night to these centres, with Moyale town accounting for more than 75 per cent.
Light vehicles, bodaboda, donkey carts and couriers are also used to sneak in the cargo undetected along the border.
It is from these centres that the bhang is transported to Nairobi using two different routes -the direct Moyale-Nairobi highway via Marsabit town and Isiolo and the unofficial route, a cutline that runs from Funannyata in Sololo to Yamicha plains of Merti sub-county in Isiolo.
More attention is being put on the route to stop the trend, police said.
This involves multi-agency teams that have been deployed on the more than 700 kilometres stretch to address the issue.
Last year in November, two people were arrested with Sh1.5 million worth of bhang in a Toyota Prado in Isiolo town and charged in an Isiolo court.
Five other people among them a police constable and a sergeant based in Mariera camp in Igembe Central, Meru County were arrested with 600 kilos of bhang worth Sh15 million by a multi-sectoral security team including the army based in Archers Post.