If criminals are safe in Runda, where will poor ‘Wanjiku’ find refuge?

Last week, while the country’s attention was on the terrorist attacks in Mandera, another kind of terrorist activity was apparently being hatched in a villa in the upmarket Runda estate in Nairobi.

According to police reports, some 77 Chinese (many of whom looked barely in their 20s) have been committing massive cyber-fraud by trying to infiltrate bank and M-Pesa accounts and ATMs in Kenya.

The house that they lived in was full of sophisticated communication gadgets and 40 of them were even charged with illegally operating a radio station from Runda.

If they had succeeded in their aims, say the police, every Kenyan would have been vulnerable to fraud.

The accidental discovery of this Chinese gang raises several questions. One, on what type of visa did these foreigners enter the country? Why is it that none of their neighbours noticed any suspicious activity? Did the landlord know that he was renting out the place to cyberterrorists? If a group of Chinese criminals can enter the country, live here, and rent a house undetected, which other nefarious criminals have set up base here?

If those arrested had the capability to hack into M-Pesa accounts, are they also not capable of hacking into security systems? Runda, after all, is very near several Western embassies as well as the United Nations complex.

FOUL PLAY

Thank God the police and detectives sensed foul play when they discovered the communication equipment in the house, which led to the arrest of the suspected criminals.

However, the Kenyan government must also look into whether its cosy relationship with China may be allowing the latter’s citizens to take advantage of the country’s poor security systems to spy on the Chinese government’s and Chinese businesses’ rivals and competitors.

Runda seems to be a preferred abode for those wanting to commit crimes in this country. (Remember the Artur brothers, who had also rented a house there?) The seclusion of this neighbourhood seems to offer criminals the cover they need. Runda is a gated upmarket community, which means that normal folk cannot go there without being vetted at the gate.

(READ: Chinese were using three houses )

(READ: 77 Chinese held in cyber bust )

Unfortunately, if the residents themselves are criminals, no one vets them. Since most houses are built on fairly large plots, it means that the neighbours are unable to see what is happening next door.

Unfortunately, there are many more Rundas in Kenya, which brings me to a point that is rarely considered as a security concern. What kind of a country are we creating where to enter every estate, building, and even neighbourhood, one has to pass through manned barriers?

In which other country are security guards an essential feature of homes, hospitals, hotels, government offices, and shopping malls?

Have we created an architecture of fear by building apartheid cities that are even more menacing than the ones of the colonial times, where the rich barricade themselves from the poor and then wonder why the poor devise schemes to rob them?

BIGGEST COPYCATS

We are the biggest copycats in the world, but we have failed to copy cities such as Paris, Istanbul, London, or even New York, where gated communities are as rare as white rhinos and considered the very antithesis of urban living, and where urban spaces are a public good, shared by all.

Ironically, these paranoid security measures have also made the city more insecure. Walls, security barriers, and body searches create a fearful society that is fragmented and distrustful. In more socially cohesive, less unequal, and less corrupt societies with better policing, citizens ensure that criminals and terrorists do not find safe havens in their midst.

Building trust and solidarity networks is one of the things that this country needs to do if it is to prevent another Mandera. The sad thing about this and other tragedies is that it is always the poor who suffer the most when terrorists strike.

The quarry workers, the teachers and other professionals from other parts of the country who laboured under difficult conditions in this remote corner of the country may not get a memorial built in their name, but history may one day judge them as heroes.

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