This archive report was first published on 5 July 2020.
On June 11, a Nissan Wingroad belonging to Deputy Officer Commanding Matunda Police Station Joseph Jakoyo was stolen from his parking lot. The theft was just one of many cases of car theft in the North and South Rift regions that had been reported in recent months.
However, detectives from Nairobi were hot on the trail of the thieves. On June 12, they spotted a car with similar specifications to Jakoyo's on the Kericho-Sotik road. The car had a different number plate, but when the detectives asked the driver to pull over, he sped off.
After a high-speed chase, the driver started shooting at the officers. Three occupants of the vehicle abandoned it by the roadside and escaped on foot, but Aron Kibet Chepkwony, 25, was arrested.
Further investigation led to the arrest of the alleged mastermind of the crime, David Ogeisia Migosi, 48, a teacher at St. Columbans Secondary School in Kitale. Migosi was found with 17 fake logbooks and a Toyota Probox reported to have been stolen.
“Upon interrogation, officers proceeded to his hideout where two other suspects, Asman Memba Bakari, 38, and Jeremiah Yego Kiptoo, 34, were arrested,” said a statement from DCI boss George Kinoti.
Seven vehicles that had been reported stolen from different towns within the Rift were recovered between Thursday and Friday. The vehicles included a Toyota Axio, a Toyota Hilux, a white Toyota Probox, a Toyota DX, a Toyota Premio, a Toyota Hiace, and an Isuzu D-Max pickup.
The DCI believes that the syndicate works with some employees of the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA). The job of the NTSA employee is to extract information about vehicle specifications from the NTSA website to facilitate the cloning of number plates.
Some of the cars were recovered from people who had already bought them. They include a white Toyota Probox, a Toyota NZE, a Mercedes Benz C200, and a Toyota Townace.
