DRUG RINGS DEFY THE LAW AS 'MR PRESIDENT' FLEES

NAIROBI

It was in March: The police raid was swift. The target, the Nairobi home of
a Cameroonian described as an international drug kingpin operating in the
East Africa region. The officers arrested the drug lord's Kenyan
girlfriend, impounded eight Mercedes Benz vehicles and held some foreign
associates he was hosting. But the man slippery as and eel, had escaped a
week earlier to Dubai.

At the same time, some Russians deported a while ago after they were
linked to narcotic trade, are back in the country and plying their
trade. Why are these international drug traffickers proving invincible?

Our writer Dominic Wabala and Victor Bwire bring you the Inside Story

Police acting on a tip off in March raided the Nairobi home of a
Cameroonian, arrested his Kenyan girlfriend, impounded eight Mercedes
Benz vehicles and arrested foreign associates he was hosting. But the
man had escaped a week earlier to Dubai.

Twenty other suspects were rounded up in subsequent raids in some of
the city's exclusive night spots. Investigations indicated that with
the help of Kenyan associates, the suspected drug baron has been able
to secure visas for his foreign associates to visit and live in the
country.

Four months later, police are yet to arrest and prosecute the man
described as an international drug kingpin operating in the country
and in the region. If the man is well known, why was he not arrested?

The vehicles were held at the CID headquarters car park.

However, the police raid seems to have come to nought after all the
vehicles, except one, were mysteriously released. The drug lord's
girlfriend was also freed without any charges being preferred against
her.

Most of the other foreign suspects were also released after the police
failed to process deportation orders or charge them.

The man, popularly known by his associates as "Mr President", had
travelled to Dubai a week before CID officers raided his Hurlingam
hideout.

The investigators, attached to the CID's Criminal Intelligence Unit
(CIU), impounded a fleet of 10 sleek vehicles, including a leading
politician's luxury Mercedes Benz. The politician has since taken back
his car, obviously using his connections.

It was established that the man has been running a drug syndicate from
an apartment bearing his name within Hurlingam area.

The man, who owns several exhibitions halls in Nairobi, has remained
holed up in Dubai after learning of the raid on his home and the
arrest of his associates.

He has opened several accounts in leading city banks, where many of
his associates deposit narcotics money claiming it comes from sales of
electronic and other goods.

One of the drug baron's girlfriends, who was arrested in 2001 while
sneaking the largest single consignment of heroin into the country by
an individual, is currently serving a lengthy jail term.

Investigations reveal that his cars were painted a glowing red on the
roof to enable his workers, associates and, when necessary, the drug
baron himself, to monitor the movement of his consignments on the
ground from small chartered planes.

But Kenya is not the drug baron's only den. His girlfriends,
detectives established, recruit young Kenyan girls into drug
trafficking activities all over the world but the source country is
Pakistan.

The new recruits are lured with tempting offers of money, gifts and
trips abroad before being spirited via Dubai to an apartment the man
bought in Lahore, Pakistan, for holiday. The "holiday" later turns out
to be a "business trip".

Investigations reveal that the drug barons use the immigration
department to secure travel documents. They are made to buy a few
cheap items in Asia which act as a smokescreen for their real cargo;
drugs.

The girls, based in exhibition stalls spread across the city, are paid
by the barons, have bank accounts where they deposit money from the
drug proceeds.

Most of the exhibition halls are located in downtown Nairobi.

Witnesses have also told of another drug ring being operated by
Russians who live on James Gichuru Road.

The Russians had been deported after the discovery in a Nairobi dam of
the body of Mr Victor Gontcharenko Jnr in 1997 and subsequent
investigations that established that they were involved in drugs business.

Mr Gontcharenko was reported as having gone to Tanzania by his
business associate, Mr Artur Mildov, on July 21, 1999. His body was
found on August 5, 1999.

Investigations into the death led to detectives unearthing a very
elaborate drug network run by the Russians.

The foreigners expelled along with Mildov were Andrea Petrov,
Chapovolo Valeri and Adrea Kountr. On arrival in Russia, Petrov was
immediately arrested for a criminal offence. Mildov went to Germany
but Valeri immediately came back to Kenya.

They came to Kenya in the 1990's and registered several companies
including Viminvest Ltd, Laken Ltd, Femga and Valand Training Ltd.

Mildov, Gontcharenko, Petrov, Andre Callaco, Andrei Kourtasov and a
number of women on arrival in the country rented a house in Muthaiga
which they turned into a striptease club. They also dealt drugs.

Investigations reveal that they are back in the country and have only
shifted their base to a house on James Gichuru Road. Within the house,
which is fitted with strong surveillance cameras and metal grille
gates, it is business as usual.

The customers come in sleek cars and are allowed into the compound in
turns.

The Russians mainly deal with foreign clients and target rich and
exclusive clubs in up-market estates.

Some of the drugs brought in by international traffickers are finding
their way into the local market.

Eastleigh Estate, according to investigators, is the main hub for
drugs coming from Northern Kenya and especially from Somali. The
various lodges where clothes are sold are major centres for money
laundering and drug trade.

Besides robe wearing agents, school children are also being used in
the distribution of drugs. The pupils supply drugs to kiosks and
canteens located near schools, where most of the clients are students.

Bogus street preachers, the detectives say, are also part of the game.
Many of them use their teaching materials to distribute the drugs.
Some of them wrap the narcotics in preaching books while others hide
them in drums.

The misfortune, however, is that once girls are inducted into the
trade they cannot get out of the vicious network. The barons ensure
they remain in the trade.

Investigations are linking the increase in violent crimes on the
kingpins' networks. They want to intimidate people into remaining
loyal or paying up promptly for supply.

Some of the people hawking cheap items such as wristwatches on the
city's Uhuru Highway, Kenyatta and Haile Selassie avenues, are in the
trade. They deftly drop miniature sachets in clients' vehicles.

The drug lords have also been using beggars to distribute their goods
to clients on various city streets.

Detectives have also established that most of the clients drive sleek
vehicles and pretend to give alms or buy something from the waiting
"beggars" and hawkers with whom they seal the deal.

Beggars, who are mostly physically disabled, position themselves at
strategic points on the highways and and wait for the clients. They
quickly drop the drugs in the vehicles, are promptly paid and move on
to other vehicles. This method of using disabled people to peddle
drugs is very common in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The
Congolese have made it very popular in Kenya.

Street children contracted by the drug dealers get their supply at
night and keep it in garbage dumps. They later pretend to scavenge for
valuables from the garbage heaps and use sacks to distribute the
drugs. They target clients in clubs and on the streets. They mostly
ply their trade at night.

Previously, Kenya has only been a convenient hub through which
narcotic drugs have been smuggled repackaged and later transported to
European countries and America.

However, some of the stuff has gradually found an increasing market in
the country creating a group of drug addicts in the cities and towns.

The traffickers have designed clever methods to package and conceal
their deadly cargo for transportation to various destinations.

Some of the drugs, especially cocaine and heroin, have been discovered
by the Police Anti-Narcotics Unit packaged in tins as juice, in
drinking straws, in seams of clothes, buttons, motor vehicle spare
parts, cosmetics, in soles of shoes and stuffed in Khat (miraa)
consignments destined for markets abroad.

The most common drug trafficked in Kenya is heroin, also known as
brown sugar. However, a few people have been intercepted with cocaine
in the country.

Cocaine is more expensive than heroin and is, therefore, less trafficked.

Law enforcement agencies worldwide have expressed concern about
growing "drug tourism" where people travel to countries because of the
easy availability of narcotic drugs.

There is growing international concern that Kenya's coast might be
degenerating into a drug tourists' haven, what with the easy
availability of narcotics and the discovery by police of the largest
haul of heroin belonging to Ibrahim Akasha, probably, the most
influential drug baron in Kenya's history.

It is noted that most of the heroin smuggled through Kenya is smuggled
from Southwest Asia by couriers who swallow the drug or conceal it in
their shoes.