A sitting Member of County Assembly is among two suspects who were Thursday arrested with 57 stones of bhang in Isiolo Town.
Police from Transnational Organized Crimes Unit and a multi-agency team arrested two suspected drug traffickers namely Nura Abdi Diba, 25 and Abdillahi Golicha Meja, 27 in the outskirts of Isiolo town.
The bhang was stashed in a house.
So far, the detectives have established that the second suspect (Golicha Meja) is a sitting MCA for Chari Ward in Isiolo County.
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 DCI headquarters for further processing as the suspects undergo investigative interviewing.
The seizure and arrests show how lucrative the business is. This is the latest such recovery to be made in the area. Most of the bhang seized in the region originates Ethiopia.
https://twitter.com/DCI_Kenya/status/1737912773290418358
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, boda-boda, 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 all the way 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.
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 multi-sectoral security team including the army based in Archers Post.
The haul was in a GSU LandCruiser pick up and a private Toyota Prado.
Days later a vehicle that managed to pass through several roadblocks in parts in upper eastern including Meru (Igembe Central and Tigania East) was seized in Makuyu, Muran’ga County with bhang with a street value of Sh14.5 million.
A Moyale trader with a fake identity card of Isiolo county government posing as a nurse and a driver from Isiolo were arrested with the haul and are being probed by anti-narcotics officers in Nairobi.
More attention is being put on the route to stop the trend, police said.
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