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War on Drugs: Kenya, the Forgotten Hotspot of the Heroin Trade

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Mr Opala is a freelance investigator based in Nairobi. More by Ken Opala. In downtown Mombasa, a nondescript office sandwiched between multistoreyed buildings is busy as usual. Every five minutes or so, gaunt youths, eyes bloodshot, walk into the tiny reception and straight away dash to the water dispenser at the far corner. They refill the only plastic glass next to the dispenser without rinsing it, and eagerly empty its contents before turning to the reception desk. Between 9. But the hushed talk between the visiting youths and any official around the reception ends up in a familiar refrain. We were promised a new batch a fortnight ago but nothing is here yet. But please, do keep checking. They want to break the habit, and methadone is the only solution they know about. But it has been in short supply lately. Donors had delayed disbursing funds for the acquisition of methadone. Nonetheless, the water appears to cool their nerves — for the time being. By the close of the day, more than clients will have shared the glass, many of them without rinsing it. Ominously, the casual way they use unwashed glasses and thereby risk contracting hepatitis B , is the way they share heroin needles — a sure way of transmitting HIV. And as will be seen later in this report, injectable drug users IDUs have become the key agents of HIV spread in the country, accounting for about 18 per cent of new infections. The 51 beds in the rehab ward are always full, with each patient staying 90 days. At the Coast, the Malindi and Mombasa government hospitals each treat addicts a day. The government moved to introduce methadone following the death of addicts triggered by heroin shortages occasioned by clampdowns on drug barons. Over addicts died in , many more in , though the total number is yet unknown. According to the International Drugs Policy Consortium IDPC , heroin started to be consumed in Kenya in the cities that were used as transit points such as Mombasa before spreading to other regions of the country and to Nairobi. Now, some 20, to 55, Kenyans inject heroin. Kenya is a major player, as a trafficking hub, in this illicit global commerce. Arrests rarely lead to convictions. The heroin comes from Afghanistan and gets here via Pakistan. According to experts, things look bad this season. But other reports indicate a higher figure. A year ago, huffingtonpost. It said as more heroin flooded into East Africa, more and more Kenyans were getting hooked on it. His Mvita constituency is among those hardest hit by the drugs problem in Mombasa, with other hotspots being Likoni and Kisauni. Nothing happened. Lack of will? Or worse? The sin of omission has caught up with Kenya. This fatal ritual has been going on for about a year now, according to medical experts at the Coast. Already, injection of heroin is becoming a key factor in HIV transmission. Figures are scanty as no serious research has been undertaken to link the drug to the spread of the disease, but the information available indicates that HIV prevalence among male drug users is 18 per cent while among females it is 44 per cent. Reports indicate that long time addicts have turned to cocktails — combinations of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and the so-called designer drugs such as methamphetamine, and alcohol — to get their fix. Each year, the Kenya Police and the UN issue reports on the drugs situation. One of the reports is global while the other is local; one is analytical, the other primarily statistical. Notwithstanding their different styles, however, both reports portray a country that is battling with a drugs problem. It reveals a consistent increase in cases related to drugs in the past 10 years. Heroin and cocaine were far better earners. In fact, of the 10 known local drug barons, nine own, or once owned, import and export companies in Mombasa and Nairobi. This amount is equivalent to all heroin seized in the East African region in the two decades Today, 40 tonnes of heroin are believed to be trafficked through East Africa annually, up from 22 tonnes in and four tonnes in And as will be seen later in this article, this is the unit that set up and arrested the Akasha brothers Baktash Abdalla and Ibrahim Abdalla and their Indian cohorts in a sting operation last January. Due to a lack of political will and institutional capacity, arrests rarely lead to convictions. When convictions occur in Kenya, they are of lower level couriers and distributors. The deportation of suspected drug barons in is an indicator of the allure of the Kenya market for the global underworld. As early as s, Noah Arap Too, the then Criminal Investigation Department head, had warned about an impending crisis in the country. Prior to this warning, Kenya was perceived a mere blip on the global map of heroin. News reports then named countries such as Nigeria, Colombia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, in Kenya, most drug-related stories were about marijuana that was being produced locally. Only a tonne of heroin was seized off the East African coast between and This picture turned out to be deceptive. According to later reports, cocaine and heroin were already here, having arrived during the tourism boom of the s. There were red flags here and there but authorities, either out of complacency or because of corruption or both, declined to read the warning signs. Attempts to arrest suspected barons have been hampered by the fact that many are in government or have business associates within the government. For instance, drug lord Ibrahim Akasha was at the time assembling a deadly kinship machine that would later torment the West, forcing Americans to demand the deportation of his children to answer charges of transporting drugs to the United States and Europe. Another red flag was the mushrooming of clearing and forwarding companies, ostensibly to cash in on the booming imports of second-hand cars and electronics. By , at least had registered with the Kenya Revenue Authority, a figure that would shoot up to 1, by At the CFSs, containers are verified, cleared, unpacked and delivered to their destinations. Until recently, these stations were barely policed, and so became conduits through which drugs could be smuggled into the country with relative ease. Kenyan authorities have thus been sleeping on the job. Now, Kenya is suffering from the sins of omission. That explains why Huffingtonpost. In one of the cables it has released, whistle-blower Wikileaks confirms the local prices of heroin at between Ksh and Ksh a gram. Mules can make as many as six trips in a year. Yet these figures, mindboggling as they are, do not tell the entire story about the Kenyan narcotics business. Drug trafficking organisations take advantage of corruption within the Kenya government and business community, and proceeds from drug trafficking contribute to the corruption of Kenyan institutions. High level prosecutions or large seizures remain infrequent. Almost all senior politicians, even those not directly involved in drugs, find themselves on the payroll of the narco-barons. They have amassed considerable wealth they can use to intimidate and threaten the law and law enforcers. The unprecedented move followed pressure from the international community to have Kenya act against the vice. A team of police officers formed to carry out investigations into the matter uncovered no evidence to charge the five. Several MPs, incidentally among them Mwau, claimed in Parliament that he was killed by drug syndicates although they released no evidence to corroborate their charge. There are politicians and police who facilitate the trafficking of drugs and provide protection to the cartels, there are those who conceal the identity of the cartels, and there are those who get paid to ensure that vessels carrying drugs are not destroyed. And lastly there are those who benefit from drugs seized from traffickers. Since then, various reports have portrayed the country as a major transit hub for drugs. Kenya has extensive air and marine links to Europe, the Americas and Asia, as well as within Africa. According to sources, bulk heroin comes from Afghanistan through Pakistan or Iran, often concealed in consignments of sugar, rice, used motor vehicles, second-hand clothes, tea, fish and other imports. It is stuffed in bulk cargo to make it difficult for scanners to detect it at the entry points. UN officials say the coastline between Somalia and Mozambique is the major trafficking zone for heroin. Apart from the official entry points, such as Mombasa and Dar es Salaam ports, this coastline has hundreds of unregulated entry points that emerged centuries ago to facilitate the slave trade and now serve as trafficking points for drugs, humans and smuggled goods. Some couriers, especially West Africans and Kenyans, ferry the drug as pellets in their tummies. For decades, it was the preferred route for drug networks. But in , authorities in Tanga, northern Tanzania, after arresting four Tanzanians and two Iranians with 95 kilos of heroin destined for Kenya, stumbled on another route, the Smack Track or Southern Route. The absence of a Coast Guard has made drug trafficking easy. Authorities are convinced that dhows, boats and big vessels pick up drugs on the high seas on a large scale and transport them to the mainland. It is not certain how many boats and dhows ply the coastline but Lamu County alone, which covers The actual number is unknown because most vessels are not registered with the Kenya Maritime Authority. Kilindini Harbour handles , standard size containers annually. Transit containers and big vessels are barely searched. However, reports indicate that Nairobi appears to be taking over from Mombasa as heroin distribution hub. There are almost , money agents in Kenya, working mostly with the mobile money provider M-Pesa. This vast infrastructure is attractive to drug lords out to conceal their earnings. It is the financial hub of East Africa, and its banking and financial sectors are growing in sophistication. Furthermore, Kenya is at the forefront of mobile banking. However, because of the lack of capacity, the FRC has only managed to process of the suspicious transaction reports STRs submitted to it since it was created, and forwarded the results to investigation and prosecution agencies. Nobody has been convicted. At the time, this was regarded as highly punitive and deterrent enough. But as it turned out, the legislation has hardly proved a deterrent. Firstly, the drafters lacked foresight; the legislation appears to target marijuana and not necessarily hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin and the designer drugs. Heroin, cocaine and the so-called designer drugs are pricey. An offender needs just a half kilo of heroin to pay the fine. Second, this legislation gives judicial officers considerable leeway that they can abuse to let drug barons off the hook — or mete out very lenient sentences. But as a look at some of the rulings shows, the prices are arbitrary. For instance, in Criminal Case of , some 20 grams of heroin were valued at Ksh But in Criminal Case of , in Kibera, And in Criminal Case of , Mombasa, 2 grams were valued at Ksh4, There is also a wide discrepancy in the sentences. In Criminal Case of , the Mombasa principal magistrate convicted George Awuor Mbwana to 10years and Ksh1 million for trafficking 10 sachets of heroin valued at Ksh3, — although this sentence would be reduced to five years in upon appeal. In Criminal Case of , the Malindi chief magistrate sentenced Carolyne Auma Majabu to life imprisonment plus a Ksh1 million fine for trafficking seven sachets of heroin valued at Ksh Without mentioning their identity, he said they were providing Nairobi residents with free-of-charge services that are meant to be sources of revenue to counties. He said the underworld individuals were out to purchase political power by using the proceeds of drug trafficking. MPs, Senators and Governors, military and police officers, preachers and businesspeople are linked to trafficking but their identities are only mentioned in hushed tones. None of them has been prosecuted or charged in court for their involvement in the illicit business. According to CID sources, authorities have isolated four types of networks that drive the Kenyan drugs underworld: The loose or fluid network often cobbled together for a one-off deal — which collapses thereafter; the highly secretive patriarchal or kinship-based networks that control the illicit trade at the Coast; the upcountry syndicates that bring together mostly business allies and their political friends; and the trans-border cartels that bring together Kenyans and foreigners. Cartels operate on political expediency. Specific cartels emerge during specific political seasons or regimes. That apart, the divisions — sometime blurred — may also be based on location or base of operation of the cartel, smuggling routes, and nationality and family links. Normally, the Kenyan cartels comprise just dozens of players who are mostly family members or business partners or acquaintances. Extra hands may be roped in case of extra load or work. According to sources within the ANU, the cartels combine drug trafficking and smuggling of humans and goods and counterfeiting. Interestingly though, the networks transform very fast in response to the changing political landscape. In the past 15 years, a number of cartels have collapsed while new ones have been formed to fill the void. It is important to note that churches have become key conduit for drug lords. In February , a New Zealand missionary who often travelled to Nairobi was jailed for 12 years for trafficking 6. Nairobi-based operatives, Kenyans and foreigners, depend on the airports and land routes to transact their illicit business. On the other hand, the so-called Coast Mafia has seized Mombasa port, airstrips at the coast, and myriad docking points on the Indian Ocean coastline. Drug lords used their ill-acquired proceeds to bribe a government that was already steeped in corruption. In the process, the kingpins were able to easily launder money by investing it in real estate, exports and imports, and in trans-shipment. The Italians, after elbowing out the Germans, invested their proceeds in real estate — constructing 4, villas and homes along the beach and on second row plots. There were complains that the villas were hideouts for fugitives but the government did little to investigate the claims. It now emerges that convicted Italian fugitive Leone Alberto Fulvio used Malindi as a hideaway from Italian authorities for close to 23 years. While in Kenya, Fulvio got citizenship, a gun licence and a certificate of good conduct, and was cleared by the Kenya Revenue Authority. His cover would later be blown by the Interpol. He is now fighting extradition. According to Frederico Varese, the author of the book Mafias on the Move: How Organised Crime Conquers New Territories , Malindi provides an ideal mafia revenue source, and a locale for money-laundering. On the other hand, the Coast Mafia formed clearing and forwarding companies and got into export and imports and the transport business. Attorney Preet Bharara. The four were arrested in a sting operation originating with a Moroccan informer in November For a long time, Ibrahim, killed in Amsterdam in , was the drug kingpin of the East African region. He controlled Mombasa port and landing sites between Kilifi and Vanga in the south of Mombasa. The Italians reigned unchallenged from Kilifi north to the Somalia border. He suffocated the West Africans, especially the Nigerians and Guineans, who were forced to take up the secondary role of couriers or middlemen from their bases in Nairobi. Other Kenyans who have since amassed wealth from drug trafficking also played second fiddle to the Akasha narco-machine. The Akashas used Mombasa port to bring in heroin and hashish from Pakistan and cocaine from the Americas. It would then be blended with tea or coffee, to confuse sniffer dogs, and then packaged, ready for export to Europe and the United States. He also had associates who did the refining, dilution and repackaging. But two things happened that changed the fortunes of this cartel and placed it on a warpath with itself: Patriarch Ibrahim was murdered; and Mwai Kibaki replaced Moi as president of Kenya. The death stoked a bitter feud within the family that led to several deaths. A number of Kibaki allies used their influence in Nairobi to target the Akashas and get into the business. It has taken time for the Akashas to rebuild. Now they are part of the supply chain that stretches from the poppy fields of Afghanistan through India into East Africa. In India, it was reported last year that the Akasha organisation and their Indian collaborators had transported kilos of morphine base, which can be refined into heroin, in January Some months ago, the Times of India newspaper reported on a plan by the Akasha sons and their Indian collaborators — Vicky Goswami and his former actress girlfriend Mamta Kulkarni — to set up a manufacturing and drug refining operation in Kenya. European cartels have also moved into Kenya following the collapse of the Opium Trail. It also recruited security and military personnel and powerful businessmen at the Coast. The cartel feared that the lead investigating officer was working with the Akashas to target them. They had dominated this market so long that they had managed to push the pioneer drug-lords, including the Akashas, out of Nairobi, only to find themselves out of the loop when conflicts in North Africa and parts of Europe made the Turkey route impassable. She claimed she was the Australian chief executive of Oasis of Grace Foundation that has affiliates in Kenya, Ghana, and several other countries. Prior to her arrest, she had attended a conference in Nairobi and later spent time in Nigeria and Cambodia. In her defence she claimed that a Kenyan, Mummy Rose, her given her seven backpacks with handicrafts to sell in Australia. The court found drugs and not handicrafts. President Uhuru Kenyatta has moved to dismantle the cartels that formed during Kibaki era. But his war is unstructured and some of those he is targeting are close allies of his friends. A Senator allied to the ruling party runs a trafficking network that operates from Wilson Airport. According to senior military officials who have served in Somalia, as at last year, authorities in Somalia had confiscated two containers destined for Kenya that belonged to the Senator. According to the International Drugs Policy Consortium, a policy network that promotes open discussion on drug policy, the Kenya-Somalia border is a playground for drug cartels that operate without fear of being detected. But, in an interview for this report, police spokesperson George Kinoti denied knowledge of the Somalia route. The route has not been known for drugs coming to Kenya. Authorities appear to dither even as the prevalence of trafficking — illustrated by the number of couriers in jails and large seizure amounts — continues to rise. Our security agencies are up to the task when it comes to dealing with drug trafficking. We will track and deal with them decisively. Titled The Making of an African Narco State , the news piece warns that drugs, crime and dirty money are so entrenched in Kenya that any threat to destabilise this underworld could actually be detrimental to the entire economy. You cannot isolate the barons. According to reports, more than 3, Kenyans are rotting in foreign jails, with some serving life sentences while others await execution. Others have died in jails abroad. About 3, are in local jails, convicted over hard drugs. While some drug-lords hold top offices in the country — two governors, a Senator, several MPs and other politicians are on the radar of the Vetted Unit, others, including top bureaucrats, police and judicial officers, provide protection to the barons. I doubt it. The arresting agency is a prisoner too. In fact, the security agencies, the police, the politicians and some mandarins are either in bed with the drug barons or are the kingpins. Undeniably, Kenya is a major trafficking hub for drugs. It also has a growing consumption problem. Those interviewed for this report detailed a number of approaches that can help defeat traffickers and trafficking: Detect, deter and interdict. Skip to content. Log into your member account to listen to this article. Not a member? 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