Big and small fish trafficking bhang

Several sleek cars are parked in various police stations in South Nyanza. At first glance, one may mistake the congested yards for car bazaars.

But a number are already rusting and dusty, more of the vehicles even covered by grass and shrub as body parts begin to fall off.

Others have been vandalised and do not have side mirrors, batteries and other parts.

The bhang trade is big business, often involving the high and mighty.

A visit to Migori, Rongo, Awendo and Isebania police stations reveals the intensity of bhang trade and trafficking.

Most of these impounded vehicles, comprising saloon cars, many of them top-of-range models were seized when carrying out the illegal trade from the neighbouring Tanzania, through Nairobi and Mombasa for sale.

Police estimate that a least three vehicles loaded with bhang pass through the southern Nyanza region to the big towns for sale. The consignments are transported both during the day and night.

Vehicles belonging to an assistant minister and a son to a current Cabinet minister are among those impounded with bhang in Migori while on transit to Nairobi.

Sh59 million bhang

Bhang impounded in the region by the law-enforcers within the last two years is estimated at Sh50 million.

It is believed that most of the bhang volumes consumed in the country is obtained from Tanzania because the authorities there have not been acting tough on the growers and traders.

According to investigations, the consignments are usually packed in sacks in Kenyan homes in Migori and Kuria West Districts, situated along the border, to await collection at night.

The traffickers target secondary schools, tourists and college students in the major towns, who are said to be the major consumers of the drug.

“The next move should be to make bhang unavailable particularly in large scale. Crime is rising in our country today as a result of bhang smoking, not to mention the increasing number of school dropouts who also engage in acts of lawlessness,” said a police officer in Migori who has been actively involved in the anti-narcotics swoop.

In Nairobi and Mombasa, one stone of the drug has a street value of between Sh800 and Sh1,000, although the dealers buy a stone from the growers at Sh20, making the business very lucrative for those who are in the get-rich-quick criminal schemes.

The consignments are usually packed neatly and carefully in bags that are sprayed with a perfume, emitting a pleasant smell.

The get-rich-schemes of the large scale dealers have been reduced to mere dreams after they are arrested, charged in court and fined. Yet the business still goes on.

Mode of transportation change from time to time in a bid to escape police dragnets.

From bicycles, to lorries loaded with to charcoal, Mercedes Benz, matatus and four-wheel-drive Toyota Prados, the huge consignments of bhang still find their way into the country’s major towns, schools and colleges and markets where there are consumers waiting to grab them at any cost.

Car hire firms have lost new expensive vehicles impounded by police while transporting the illicit drug.

The hirers pose as business executives wanting to go to upcountry for a company retreat, holiday or private visit only to use the posh cars for smuggling the drug.

The vehicles are preferred by the dealers because they are rarely stopped at the roadblocks.

“In fact, the police would only impound such a vehicle if they had a tip-off. Ordinarily, they would only salute you in all the roadblocks from Nyanza to Nairobi and Mombasa,” said a dealer who was charged in court recently.

There have also been small scale traders carrying the drug in suit cases. Women also strap them around their waists.

Three women were recently charged in a Migori court for transporting bhang. Their mode of transport was perplexing. Several stones of bhang were tied around their waists and bottoms.

They covered the cargo with a shuka, then carried new born babies borrowed from neighbours privy to the deal.

The babies were meant to draw sympathy from the police so that they are not subjected to the thorough checks at the night road blocks along the Migori-Nairobi highway.

But hawk eyed officers noticed the “buttocks were abnormally big” and asked the female officers to search them. What emerged were tiny women and several stones of bhang. But they pleaded they were doing the business to pay fees for their children in secondary schools.

Some time back, a former Migori police station commander Charles Chebet led a team of officers to the border to destroy a bhang plantation.

But the mission flopped when a group of youths emerged from the bush carrying poisoned arrows and dared the officers to a fight.

The armed policemen retreated when the situation appeared volatile and passed on the matter to their seniors for action.

Traffickers confessing

Traffickers arrested by police have been confessing that they get the drug from Tanzania where the crop is grown in large scale. Dealers say men in Tanzania harvest the drug from the farms, dry it and pack it in sacks, awaiting collection at night.

An official from Tanzania told us that bhang growing and trade is not as illegal in that country as miraa trade. A suspect arraigned in a Tanzanian court for handling miraa is handed a stiffer penalty than somebody found smoking, growing or selling bhang.

As a result, several highlands in Mara Province of Tanzania are dotted with drug plantations grown mainly for sale to bhang thirsty Kenyans.

Angered by the continued smuggling of bhang between the border of the two countries, Kenyan authorities from Migori and Kuria districts have been meeting their colleagues in Tanzania in a bid to thrash out the matter.

The Kenyan and Tanzanian governments resolved to put up a fight against cross border drug trafficking to save the youth in the region from moral decay.

Parents have complained that the drug is pushing their children out of school to engage in reckless drinking of alcohol.

A reformed street boy John Owiti says he left school when his peers introduced him to bhang.

“It gave me a false illusion that I could make it in life without necessarily going to school. I wasted my time smoking bhang in the streets. I wish I could get young again and go back to school,” he said.

Mr Owiti is now 35 and is carpenter in Migori Town. He learnt carpentry in a rehabilitation centre in Nairobi after dropping out at Standard Five.