Revealed: Drug networks and politics in Kenya

Drug trafficking has captured sections of the business and political elite, soaking the fabric of affluent society, according to detailed crime intelligence information seen by the Daily Nation.

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Sixteen well known Kenyans — among them national politicians, business magnates, senior police officers, a popular rapper and a beauty queen — are deeply involved in the drug trade, according to the report.

The hub of the drug trade is the port of Mombasa where hard drugs — cocaine and heroin — are handled for the domestic and international markets.

The report sensationally demonstrates that the people who run the drugs trade in Kenya are serving or former MPs.

The report, without providing details, also links prominent Kenyans with gunrunning, money laundering and human trafficking.

The document, marked "secret", identifies a senior government official as overlord in the hierarchy of drug cartels as is referred to as "The Boss".

He and his associates are described as "dangerous," and is directly accused of contract killings targeting anybody investigating their businesses.

He is the head of an "unknown organisation" controlling almost the entire narcotics trade in Kenya, the report says.

A separate report tabled in parliament linked the 2004 murder of Kenya Ports Authority CID chief Hassan Abdillahi to the drugs trade at the Coast.

The secret reports have formed part of the basis of investigations ordered by police commissioner Mathew Iteere three weeks ago.

Most of the drug kingpins use family members as their main associates, ostensibly because the illicit trade requires a lot of trust and loyalty. At times, they use their girlfriends and mistresses, according to the report.

Politicians are named as key traffickers and to protect their illegal business, they have lured with bribes some senior police officers, officers from the anti-narcotics police unit, those from the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) as well as elements in the Judiciary.

The report also drags the military into the murky saga, citing cases on unspecified dates when military vehicles were used to ferry drugs in Nairobi.

Kenya Revenue Authority is blamed because containers belonging to some traffickers are neither inspected nor is duty charged on them.

A case is given where a diligent Customs officer seized a container suspected to contain drugs at container freight station in 2008. The report says the drug kingpin paid a bribe of Sh1 million to have the officer transferred.

It estimated that last year, MPs suspected of being drug lords "facilitated the importation of at least one shipment per week" through the port of Mombasa. The report is current and detailed.

For example, it recounts the importation of drugs from Pakistan this September which were off-loaded at Shimoni from a vessel whose name is provided. The registration number of the vehicle into which the drugs were transferred as well the MP alleged to be owner, are given.

It details drug dealing activities for the last six years, naming Pakistan, India and Afghanistan as sources of the drugs with Western Europe being the main destination.

A section of the reports has the bio data of the prominent personalities, including their age, their tribes, clans, the village of birth and their parents' names.

In one of the cases detailed, one of the dealers, a suspected drug figure who has been prominently in the news in the recent past, had a house near the "Eastleigh AirForce base" where drugs were processed and packaged.

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Source: Breaking News, Kenya