The pursuit of easy money and high life amongst Kenyans has been identified as a major influence towards joining the vice. There are a number of Kenyan families who have fully immersed themselves in the illicit business.
One alleged such couple is Jane Wanjiru and her husband Joseph Wanjohi Muthie. They are claimed to be the biggest drug suppliers in Nairobi. The duo have cut out their area of operation in Mathare area in a place popularly known as Nigeria due to the amounts of drugs sold in an unrestricted manner.
International drug cartel consists of Nigerians and Kenyans.
The duo allegedly brings in large quantities of narcotics which they also sell to other retailers besides their peddlers.
They source the narcotics from Uganda Tanzania and Pakistan where they have associates mostly Nigerians and Pakistani nationals who have direct access to barons based in Dubai, Pakistan and Iran, it is claimed.
Wanjiru and Muthie allegedly travel regularly to Dubai, Uganda and Tanzania to meet their associates where they plan how to discuss logistics involving the packaging, transport and sales for the narcotics.
The Muthies have a well organised team of young men and women mostly close relatives whose roles range from receiving the drugs, storage, testing the quality, repackaging into sachets and collections of daily sales which is then delivered to their bosses, it is alleged.
In September 2009, the couple was arrested in their house where three kilogrammes of heroin was allegedly seized and large sums of cash were recovered. The case was handled by Kibera Law Courts.
However, from records, the case was never concluded due to the fact that the court file disappeared from the registry.
It is claimed the Muthies paid out Sh3m to some court officials to destroy the file.
They also have a vigilante group whose main mandate is to ward off any potential entrants into their turf with ruthlessness and violence.
According to informants any attempts by other drug traffickers to infiltrate the turf is usually met with a lot of violence against the trafficker and his or her people.
The hired goons are ready to kill for a small fee or in exchange for narcotics for personal use. Those who are known to the syndicate are full of fear of the gang and are even afraid to discuss them for fear of their lives.
They whisper their names in panic as their eyes dart fearfully from side to side as if expecting them to suddenly appear and mete out their violence on them.
As for the Muthies, this is considered a family business. In July 2018, their mother Wanjiru Kinyanjui who is also referred to as Nyakinywa by other drug lords was arrested in a swoop by police officers. During this arrest, she confessed having introduced her children into the drug business.
Sadly, she also regretted that she faced a lonely sunset life due to the fact that almost all her children were now either in prison or on their way there due to them having active narcotics cases in court.
Two of her sons are currently in prison namely John Mungai Wanjiru alias Warfa aka Jonte and Joseph Kinyanjui Wanjiru.
The Muthies lifestyle is a testimony to this. Having no known source of income, the Muthies have somehow managed to live in the upmarket area of Muthaiga in a house they own, estimated to have been built at a cost of Sh100 million.
They drive top of the range vehicles and their children attend high cost schools and international universities. The fact that one of their children, Earvin Wanjohi, wrote-off a luxury Range Rover vehicle in an accident and the Muthies not being bothered by it while out having a good time is a testament to their life of luxury and means.
To the ordinary citizen, they depict the affluent family who have it all. Frequent holiday cum “business trips” to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and China, are nothing new to them. It is only recently that the Muthies got into the liquor business.
Sources at Kenya Revenue Authority confirm that the Muthie family has never filed their tax returns or more than a decade despite them claiming that they run legitimate businesses. KRA has slapped them with a bill of Sh60 million owed to them in back taxes and undeclared incomes. Government agencies have now finally caught up with them and are investigating other properties they own which have been acquired from drug proceeds.
Muthies siblings have also allegedly been heavily involved in drug trafficking activities. Joseph’s brother-in-law, Joseph Kinyanjui Wanjiru, is currently serving a 20- year jail term and a fine of Sh40 million from August 2018, after the JKIA court found him guilty of drug trafficking. Kinyanjui was arrested in November, 2016 in possession of 10 kilograms of heroin which he was repackaging for sale in Mathare area.
Elizabeth Njoki Wanjiru, a sister to Jane also has a narcotics case at Milimani Law Courts. Elizabeth was arrested in September, 2016 while in possession of 15 kilograms of heroin. Elizabeth was arrested in a house she had rented together with her now estranged boyfriend, Geoffrey Martin Paul, in Kayole, which was only used to store and repackage narcotics. Packaging equipment was also found at the crime scene. The case has however been dragging in court for a while. Since Njoki is out on bond she continues to import and distribute narcotics. Old habits die hard.
After her arrest, the courts had initially granted her a Sh100,000 bond before the prosecution appealed and was later revised to Sh1m bond which was paid in a heartbeat.
John Mungai Wanjiru brother to Jane and Antony Mungai Kungu an employee of the Muthies were arrested on July 2018 in a narcotics store house in Riabai area of Kiambu county with approximately 1kg of heroin that they were busy packaging for redistribution.
From a source that did not want to be named, the Muthies have on several occasions threatened police officers who are investigating them especially when they are unable to compromise them. The Muthies have managed to recruit some police officers who were on their monthly pay in order to protect them and/or alert them of any impending police operations.
It seems the current n a r c o t i c s law has been lenient on drug traffickers as they are able to manipulate it to their advantage. The unfortunate matter is that the drug traffickers continue to destroy the lives of the public through the sale of narcotics for their consumption. Apparently, the Muthies target young people in the society who are easily hooked into the vice thus eventually rendering them unproductive lot and easily lured into crime by criminal groups.
The correlation in consumption of narcotics and upsurge in criminal activities in the society is evident. School children are not being spared either by the drug traffickers’ greed for money. They are lacing sweets, biscuits and other snacks that school going children buy with narcotics in order to hook them into drug use.
Despite the endless effort that the government is putting in place, like the president’s agenda 4, to ensure that its citizenry gets a quality life, such drug traffickers are watering it down as they corrupt the minds of such productive age group in the society. Weekly Citizen