Bhang worth Sh76m destroyed in Makueni as transporter jailed

Bhang Makueni

Police officers on guard as court officials prepare to burn bhang valued at Sh76 million in Makueni on May 6, 2021. A man who was transporting the bhang in a truck was jailed for 10 years.

Photo credit: Pius Maundu

A court in Kilungu, Makueni County Thursday morning suspended its session to destroy bhang worth Sh76 million in street value.

The bhang weighing 2,556 kilogrammes and in 53 sacks was the exhibit in a narcotics trafficking case that the court concluded a fortnight ago.

The court jailed Nathaniel Odhiambo Wambi, who was found with the bhang for 10 years. He was given the option of paying a Sh5 million fine.

Wambi was arrested after the truck he was driving was involved in an accident at Malili township along the Mombasa-Nairobi highway on the night of August 13 last year.

The court heard that the owner of the cargo fled the scene, leaving behind the driver who had suffered slight injuries. The court exonerated the owner of the truck after it emerged that he had authorised the vehicle to transport jaggery and not bhang.

Bhabg worth Sh76 destroyed in Makueni

Travelling from Isebania

According to court documents seen by the Nation, the convict was travelling from the Isebania border town to Mombasa. He had hidden the sacks of bhang behind a few sacks of maize.

The burning of the bhang took place in an open field in Sultan Hamud township and it was supervised by Kilungu Senior Resident Magistrate Charles Mayamba and Mukaa Deputy County Commissioner Kaburu Kaimba. There were a handful of police officers and hundreds of residents.

"We have destroyed 2,556 kilogrammes of bhang worth Sh76 million after the Kilungu Law Courts convicted those who were transporting the narcotic," Mr Kaimba told journalists.

He decried the rise of cases of bhang trafficking in the area.

Hailing the police and the court for acting swiftly on the case, the administrator said most of the bhang trafficking cases reported in the region involve transporters ferrying the commodity from western Kenya to the Coast.