A suspect arrested alongside a Member of Isiolo County Assembly was on a wanted list for among others arms trafficking and murder.
Nura Abdi Diba was also wanted for trafficking narcotics especially bhang from Shashamane in Ethiopia to a controlled area in northern Kenya.
The same found its way to other parts of the country and region, officials say.
Some of the weapons he is accused of supplying have killed locals and police for snitching on him, police said.
His four wheel drive land cruiser car was intercepted in Isiolo town before it led to a house where bhang worth about Sh10 million was seized on Thursday.
“He thrives along Meru – Isiolo road near Mururi junction. Nura was with his close accomplice Abdullah Golicha Major- MCA Chari Ward,” said a senior official aware of the probe.
Police said he was also under probe for supplying arms and to the warring communities in the area.
Bhang weighing 295 kilos with a street value of about Sh10 million was found in the Thursday operation that came after long surveillance and probe.
He will be arraigned alongside the MCA as investigations go on.
The two 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 in the outskirts of Isiolo town.
The bhang was stashed in a house.
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.
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.
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