Police in Marsabit seize Sh16m bhang hidden in water bowser

Police in Marsabit have impounded a water bowser in which 561kgs of bhang, estimated to be worth Sh16 million had been hidden.

The water truck was seized at Gas area in Laisamis.

Marsabit Sub-County Police Commander Josephat Wachira said the vehicle — registration number KCC 583H — was intercepted along the Arapal-Olturot road by a multi-agency security team and Anti-Stock Theft Unit officers from Archers Post Police Station.

“On March 17,2021 at around 1.15am, a  multi-agency security and ASTU officers acting on intelligence impounded a lorry loaded with more than half a tonne of cannabis sativa worth Sh16 million [in] street value in Gas, Laisamis Sub-County,’’ Mr Wachira said.

He said that upon search, the police found the vehicle's rear compartment loaded with 561 kilos of the drug.

Vehicle abandoned

The occupants of the vehicle, whose destination could not be immediately established, abandoned it upon noticing the officers.

It was towed to Marsabit Police Station and processed before handing it over to the DCI Headquarters in Nairobi where thorough investigations will be conducted.

Mr Wachira said he was shocked by the constantly changing ingenuity by drug cartels seeking to evade police dragnets.

Undesignated routes

He revealed that police officers had been deployed to all the suspected undesignated routes used by the cartels to transport the drugs from neighbouring Ethiopia.

Last November, police recovered 139 kilos of bhang hidden in the compartment of a lorry heading to Nairobi.

Five suspects were arrested in connection to the incident.

A similar incident was reported when a former presidential candidate, Jaffer Isaak, was arrested in Marsabit with a consignment of 445 kilogrammes of bhang along the Moyale-Marsabit highway on June 20, 2019.

He was stopped by the police while driving a Toyota Prado Land Cruiser that was towing a trolley carrying the 445kgs of bhang valued at Sh13,350,000.