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How drug lords have turned Kisii into trafficking hub

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Published on Wednesday, 15 April 2009 07:04

Reports on bhang trafficking show there is a general upsurge in the illegal trade as the police struggle to combat it. Kisii region tops the areas where, according to the police, big names among them politicians have been linked to the trade. Kisii DCIO, Mr Issa Mohammed told CCI that those growing bhang in Tanzania are Kenyan tycoons who own large farms where they employ locals to cultivate the crop.

Harvest season is between March and April.

"It is harvesting time now in Tanzania that is why we have an upsurge in the cargo netted on Kenyan roads because of the bumper harvest," Mohammed says. A stone goes for between Sh100 and Sh200 at the farms while it fetches from Sh500 in the black market in Kenya.

Police display bhang packed in a vehicle that was used to transport the haul to Mombasa.

Last month, police in Kisii arrested a suspect while his colleagues escaped in a raid where they netted 1,286 stones and 452 rolls of bhang with a black market value of Sh700,000 on transit to Nairobi.

The cargo was stashed in a Toyota saloon car on the Migori-Kisii highway.

Officer Commanding Police Division (OCPD) Mr Augustine Kimantiria says the drug originated from Tanzania where it is produced in large quantities. The OCPD said dealers have devised new methods of packaging and sealing the bags, for example, with maize cobs to escape police checks.

In December last year, a Mitsubishi Pajero was intercepted in Nairobi stuffed with thousands of stones of the drug from Kisii. Around that time, residents of Manga District stumbled upon 35 sacks of bhang on transit to an unknown destination.

Barely three days later, another consignment was impounded in Isebania Town on the Kenya-Tanzania border. Kenya is a fertile market for bhang from Tanzania and also a transit point to other countries where the drug is now a money minting undertaking.

Districts on the border with Tanzania and Uganda are conduits for transit of the narcotic. Police describe Kuria District as the spot for peddlers while Kisii is believed to be the major packaging and transit town.

Almost every week police in Kisii impound the drug hidden in buses and hired vehicles from Isebania, Migori, Homa-Bay and Kisii towns.

Sacks of bhang at a police station after it was impounded in Kisii on transit to Nairobi.

"Although we are doing our best to keep this region bhang-free, the truth is that it is extremely difficult to control the drug from reaching this side because our neighbours seem very reluctant to fight the trade," says Jacob Muchai, the Kuria District Criminal Investigations Officer (DCIO).

"The major problem is that cannabis is produced in Tanzania without restrictions and the peddlers have devised tricks to evade arrest," Muchai says. Though bhang smoking, farming and trade is illegal in Tanzania, authorities there treat it as a minor offence. A Tanzanian citizen told CCI that the drug is grown freely in his country just like maize and beans or any other cash crop.

"In my country, the law is totally lax on the cultivation of bhang. We, therefore, face no difficulty at all in growing it or engaging in its business," says Mwinyi Kitumbala.

"Bhang is grown in open farms, harvested and cured in well-built stores in villages and sold to willing business people in Tanzania and Kenya. Much of the produce ends up in Kenya where there is a ready market and prices are better." Kutumbala adds: "Close the markets in Kenya and farmers on the other side will stop cultivating the drug."  A Tanzanian government officer who only identified himself as Chabumba, however, denies his country encourages production and trade in the drug.

Police officers manning roadblocks have been accused of promoting the trade and using their positions to enrich themselves by getting proceeds from its sale. Bus and truck drivers openly bribe officers.

In a rare face-off, the public confronted police officers in Nyamira when they tried to take away bhang that had been impounded at Kemera, Manga District.

The angry mob accused police of intending to sell the drug since no suspect had been arrested and demanded that it be torched on the spot. "Why are the police showing interest in this drug after we have impounded it yet they have allowed it to pass through all roadblocks? We want Kisii to stop being the hub of bhang trade," said Kemera ward councilor King’oina Nyakundi.

Nyakundi demanded that the police commissioner should now read the discontent in the general public and realise that his officers are compromised. "The police in this country owe the Government an explanation as to how the illicit trade has been going on in Kuria, Migori, Homa-Bay and Kisii to Nairobi and Mombasa without being noticed at roadblocks on our highways," demanded Esther Mwamule, Manga District Officer One.

To the jubilation of the public and the dismay of the police, the DO ordered that more than 16,500 stones impounded burned immediately.

Nyakundi points out that while Kenyans appreciate the establishment of the Anti-Narcotic Police Unit to track down traffickers, other wings of the police force and law enforcement agencies should cooperate to eliminate the trade.

But he also calls for a thorough empowerment of the public, leaders and the strengthening of community policing groups to augment police efforts.  "It pains me to watch young boys destroying their lives through smoking bhang. Some have now become zombies," Nyakundi said.