Elite DCI officers to stay in remand after robbing gas company employees
A magistrate yesterday allowed DCI boss George Kinoti seven more days to continue detaining three detectives who allegedly abducted an LPG company’s manager and his colleague before robbing the manager of Sh600,000 in Matuu town, Machakos County on Friday night.
Police constables William Mutua, Henry Maitai and Jonathan Sankale all attached to the DCI’s elite special service unit SSU who appeared before Kibera chief magistrate Joyce Gandani were ordered to be detained at Kileleshwa police station until Monday.
Bold thieves
The four robbers armed with two AK47 rifles and a pistol are said to have forced the company’s manager to withdraw money at Kenya Commercial Bank Matuu town’s branch ATM before they returned him to the company’s site where they forced employees to call their boss asking him to send Sh500,000 to the officers’ phones and he obliged.
“The preliminary investigations have established their mobile phones were used during the commission of the offence,” Inspector Wilson Koech said in an affidavit filed at Kibera law courts.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) boss George Kinoti said three of the four officers were yesterday morning arrested.
“We are dealing firmly with all the criminals and all the bad apples will be removed from the service,” he said.
Kinoti said the officers had received information that the company was illegally refilling gas cylinders from various gas companies behind locked doors past curfew hours, and decided to raid the premises.
“The three were disarmed and placed in police custody as investigations continue,” Kinoti said.
The officer had on Friday night at around 10pm carjacked Julius Mathembe, a security manager at Baraka Gas Company and his driver at the Mathauta junction as they were heading to the company.
“Upon reaching at Mathauta junction, they were blocked by another vehicle registration number KBN 336L, Subaru Forester metallic grey in colour, with four male occupants.
Two of them were armed with an AK47 rifles and one with a pistol and who introduced themselves as DCI officers from Nairobi,” a brief to police headquarters read.
Two of the officers got into the car and ordered him to drive to the company premises.
When they arrived, the officers ordered everyone to lie down and took their phones.
They then escorted Mathembe to the office and asked him why they were selling gas from another company.
Mathembe however explained to them that they had an agreement to stock and sell products from Lake Gas.
The officers took the agreement and ordered Mathembe to give them Sh1 million.
They bargained and the officers agreed to be given Sh600,000. The owner of the company sent the money to Mathembe phone and the officers escorted him to KCB Matuu branch where he withdrew Sh100,000.
The service provider blocked Mathembe’s account and he could not access the remaining Sh500,000.
Agent number
“Sh 370,000 was transferred to an Mpesa Till number, an agent number and two Safaricom lines in various locations, all which were traced back to the suspects,” Kinoti said.
They then drove away at around 5am, after the seven-hour ordeal. The matter was reported to the police and the OCS Matuu visited the scene.
Investigations were launched and yesterday morning, three officers were arrested by their colleagues from the SSU.
