This archive report was first published on 23 September 2019.
September 23, 2019, marked a day of reckoning for the DCI's Child Protection Unit, as allegations of a massive extortion syndicate surfaced, tainting the image of the National Police Service.
A senior superintendent of police at the unit is alleged to have created a web of extortionists across the country, swindling millions of shillings from innocent people, particularly foreigners and rich Kenyans.
The syndicate has ruined the lives of many innocent foreigners, who are threatened with fictitious charges of defilement to part with money. Those who dare to question the illegal demands for bribes often end up being charged and prosecuted in courts.
Informers, mostly women, have been enlisted in various areas, including Mombasa and Malindi, to profile and scheme against foreigners and tourists. These women claim to be on the cartel's payroll and are paid for each scheme they fix.
According to sources, the senior officer would dispatch a team of CID officers to arrest and detain suspects without an OB or complainant's name mentioned. The officer would then fly to the region, lodge fictitious defilement charges, and arraign the suspect in court for prosecution.
The syndicate has also enlisted corrupt judicial officers in courts in Kilifi and Malindi to fix cases and ensure suspects are jailed. The latest incident involves a Turkish billionaire, Osman Elsek Erdinc, accused of defiling three minors at his Kikambala home in Kilifi county.
Lawyers representing the accused have raised an alarm over what appears to be the hands of the extortion syndicate trying to push for the tycoon's conviction. Sources claim a well-orchestrated plot was hatched by informers, including a director of a private school in Mombasa, to fix the Turkish businessman.
One of the informers, Sophia Sein Mutaiwua, was arrested recently and charged with using her 17-year-old daughter to fix foreigners on intentional claims of defilement. Sophia and her daughter were the only prosecution witnesses in the Turkish defilement case in Malindi, which many saw as a setup to grab the businessman's properties after deporting him from the country.
Prosecutor handling the case marked two other prosecution witnesses as hostile after they declined to testify, citing they were part of the fixing scheme. Sophia was hired by the CID officer through Mrs. Njuguna, a director at Greenwood Academy in Mombasa, to lure her daughter and two other girls to set up the Turkish tycoon.
The self-styled single mother of five kids, currently at menopause, is claimed to have reverted to exchanging her young girls with rich male foreigners and tourists to get money for her upkeep. The arrest of Sophia sent wrong signals to the public about the vision and mission of the Child Protection Unit, which is known to be the first unit launched in Africa for the protection of children's rights.
Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti has stated that the existence of the unit is a major milestone in protecting children, but to achieve this noble goal, the unit must be streamlined.
