This archive report was first published on 7 September 2019.
On Thursday, a dramatic heist occurred in Nairobi, where a cash transit company lost approximately Sh72 million. Investigations have revealed that the perpetrators were actually police officers who used two vans to cart away the loot.
According to sources, the officers were from the Utawala Administration Police (AP) camp and Embakasi. The police were reviewing two CCTV footages – one from the Standard Chartered Bank and another from the G4S Headquarters – to identify the suspects.
Initial reports indicated that the AP officers who had escorted G4S staff to load money in an ATM turned out to be criminals after they asked for the ATM security code to load the cash. The men in police uniforms took the G4S staff mobile phones and offloaded 13 bags of cash into the waiting Toyota Noah which they used to escape.
Four G4S staff who allegedly were left at the scene contacted their senior and a report on the stolen cash was filed with the police. Police investigations now point at a possible collusion between the G4S staff and the AP officers.
A special team of officers from the Flying Squad, Special Crime Prevention Unit, and Nairobi area DCI officers has been tasked to find the stolen cash. The investigators hope to nail the AP officers and the G4S staff who may have been involved in the theft.
Yesterday, police in Kikuyu recovered cash boxes that had been abandoned at Thogoto forest. A report from Kikuyu police station to police headquarters at Vigilance House revealed that 13 empty cash bags from different banks had been found abandoned in the bushes.
As the investigation continues, six suspects implicated in the theft will now spend the next seven days in police cells. This is after the prosecution was yesterday granted seven days to detain the six suspects involved in the heist.
