This archive report was first published on 17 November 2019.
On a typical morning, Abdikadir Dabar would wake up to the sound of birds chirping outside his balcony window. But on a fateful morning in November 2019, he was greeted by a nightmare - his car was missing.
According to Dabar, he had parked his silver Toyota 30 meters from his house, and a neighbor had seen it as late as 4 am that morning. However, by 5:30 am, the car had vanished. The thieves seemed to have done their homework well, as the car did not have a tracking device, which had been removed by Dabar's mechanic three weeks earlier.
Another resident, Abraham Mbaja, also fell victim to the thieves. He had parked his silver Toyota Fun Cargo outside his house at Tassia Estate and retired for the night. However, when he stepped out of his house the following morning, he found the space where he had left the car empty. Mbaja's car had a tracking device, but the thieves had dismantled it and dumped it at the parking lot just outside his house.
Residents of Tassia Estate are living in fear after a spate of car thefts in the area. The thieves seem to have a well-organized operation, targeting cars with specific characteristics. In an interview with The Standard, Head of Flying Squad Musa Yego attributed most of the thefts in Tassia and other estates in Nairobi to the gullibility of city residents who unwittingly employ thugs disguised as watchmen.
Yego also revealed that the most popular cars for thieves are white and silver, as they cannot be easily singled out in a street as most of the cars are of the same color. The residents are now left to wonder how they can protect themselves and their properties from these well-organized thieves.
