Alarm as more women caught trafficking drugs

Controversial Nairobi businesswoman Joyce Akinyi who arrested yet again on the night of July 12, 2019 after police found her with heroin worth Sh3 million. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

In Summary

• Most of the female traffickers are operating in Nairobi and Mombasa, police say.
• Some women have become established drug dealers as they possess properties worth millions of shillings believed to be from proceeds of drugs business.
• According to a 2018 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, women are being lured into the trade due to socioeconomic vulnerability, violence, intimate relationships and economic considerations.

By MOHAMED AHMED
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What a man can do, a woman can do better, so goes the popular saying.

The adage is turning out to be true as the number of women being arrested in connection to narcotics trade rises.

Previously, the trade was dominated by men, but it seems women are taking over, if the recent arrests are anything to go by.

BLOWN UP

Interestingly, most of those arrested in connection to the drugs’ business are wives and close relatives of drug lords.

Ms Ruweida Bwanahamad, 34, is the latest drug trafficking suspect.

Detectives from the Anti-Narcotics Unit pounced on her at her home in Bamburi Mwisho, Mombasa, where they seized 533.7 grammes of heroin worth Sh1.6 million.

She was arrested last week alongside her brother-in-law Yahya Abubakar, 24.

Police also seized a saloon motor vehicle, several title deeds and chequebooks associated with the syndicate’s drug distribution activities.

Relatives confided to the Saturday Nation that Ms Bwanahamad is the wife of convicted drug trafficker Ahmed Said Bakari, famously known as El-Chapo, while Mr Abubakar is his nephew.

Bakari is serving a 24-year jail term at Shimo la Tewa Maximum Prison in Mombasa after he was found guilty of trafficking heroin worth Sh29 million.

Mr Bakari is also said to have been the mastermind and architect of movement of 9.6 kilogrammes of heroin sized in Kilifi in 2015 aboard the Baby Iris yacht that was blown up in the high seas following an executive order by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

He was sentenced alongside a Sychellois, Clement Serge Bristol, who was handed 10 years in jail.

SUPERVISING

Bakari, who was named by police as a leader of a drug syndicate, has been working with his wife (Ms Bwanahamad) to distribute drugs even as he serves his term, say police.

Police reports obtained by the Saturday Nation alleged that the wife was supervising the distribution of heroin from the prison cells.

Police name them as the main operatives behind the massive distribution of heroin in Mombasa, Kilifi, Malindi and Lamu towns.

Ms Bwanahamad is out on a Sh2 million bond while Mr Abubakar is still detained after he was denied bond by a Shanzu court.

A week before Ms Bwanahamad’s arrest, controversial businessman Joyce Akinyi was yet again in the hands of the police. She was arrested in Nairobi with 2kg of heroin worth Sh3 million.

Ms Akinyi and a Congolese national were arrested in Nairobi West. She was detained at the Muthaiga Police Station, a place she is too familiar with, as she has in the past been apprehended three times on allegations of drugs trafficking. She was later charged at the JKIA court and denied bond. Her case is ongoing.

Ms Akinyi was once married to a suspected Nigerian drug lord Antony Chinedu, who was in 2013 deported by the government.

Meanwhile, in June, four women were arrested in Kinoo, Kiambu County, by officers from the Anti-Narcotics Unit and the Special Crime Prevention Unit with heroin and cocaine. Three of them were sisters Rose, Anne and Mercy Musanda. They were arrested with 1.5kg of heroin worth Sh5.25 million.

MILLIONS

The three were later arraigned at the JKIA court and charged with trafficking in drugs. Their case is ongoing.

A day before their arrests, another woman, Scholastica Namunyu, a Nairobi-based suspected drug trafficker, had been apprehended.

Ms Namunyu was arrested with 350 grammes of cocaine, which police valued at Sh1.2 million. She was remanded at Langata Women Prison.

Coast DCI boss Washington Njiru said the involvement of women in the illicit business is part of a scheme used by drug barons.

“All these women who have been arrested are linked to some drug suspects, which gives an indication that they are big players,” said Mr Njiru.

He noted that women are being used because the society least expects them to engage in such a business.

“It is not easy for women to be suspected to be involved in such business,” he added.

He noted some women have become established drug dealers as they possess properties worth millions of shillings believed to be from proceeds of drugs business.

According to a 2018 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, women are being lured into the trade due to socioeconomic vulnerability, violence, intimate relationships and economic considerations.