Of security agencies unwilling to tackle Kenya's criminal economy
A policeman with cartons of counterfeit cigarettes seized at a house in Nakuru County.
On September 13 last year, Kenyan businessman Zakariya Abasheikh was arrested in Mombasa on suspicion of being an Al-Shabaab armourer.
Abasheikh’s family, which lives in Nairobi, raised alarm when the police could not prove his involvement in arms trafficking, upon which he was abducted by unknown people and supposedly taken to Somalia.
Experts say such abductions, with the fate of many victims remaining unknown, give a peek into an unfamiliar criminal economy that hitherto elicited little interest, but its perpetrators are so high up in government and it is often difficult to detect. They say its invisible structure makes its rapid expansion into big-money economy a threat to the country’s well-being.
Crime researchers Willis Okumu and Dr Halkano Wario of ENACT, an international civil society that documents crime trends in the world, have gone as far as drawing comparisons with narcotics bastions like Colombia, Panama, Mexico and Haiti if the situation is allowed to persist.
Okumu says extortion and racketeering is not a new phenomena in Kenya, but it is attracting more attention after increasing complaints about the presence of contraband sugar, cooking oil and gold.
Abduction for ransom, arbitrary arrests and arm-twisting victims to extract concessions is just one aspect of the protection racketeering criminal market in East Africa. It is highly lucrative, with Dr Wario saying Kenyan security agencies are struggling to keep pace, with the involvement of high-ranking government officials keen to stave off competition and business rivalry making it worse.
Genocide
Former Rwanda genocide suspect and businessman Felicien Kabuga, for more than two decades, evaded arrest thanks to protection accorded by senior State officials, police and intelligence officers in former President Daniel arap Moi’s government.
In her book, The Rise of a Party-State in Kenya: From Harambee to Nyayo!, Prof Jenniffer Widner, details how founding President Jomo Kenyatta’s daughter, with the help of an assistant minister for tourism wildlife, presided over the decimation of the elephant, rhino, lion and cheetah populations. During this period, Prof Widner says, poachers enjoyed free reign because they were protected by the State.
Okumu points out that the tradition was inherited by the Moi regime.
“What we are beginning to grapple with is the perpetuation of a criminal economy that is patronised by ‘deep state’. It is rebounding and we fear it might get worse with the coming into force of the open visa policy,” says Mr Okumu.
Until 2010, when Al-Shabaab abducted French tourists in Lamu, what the experts now refer to as protection or extortion racketeering was hardly a public concern. However, the demand for hefty ransoms by the militia pulled the veil off. By its “white collar” nature, they say, it is difficult to quantify or contextualise because the actors are embedded in government.
In Abasheikh’s case, for instance, Somalia has not been able to connect him to a consignment of military hardware he allegedly imported from China. When word went round that the businessman was “deported” to Somalia to stand trial, the Weekly Review unsuccessfully sought interviews with Somalia Police Spokesman Abdi Hassan Mohamed Hijar and Minister for Information Daud Aweis. The two initially agreed to provide full information before they returned “I don’t know” responses by WhatsApp.
Instructively, notes Okumu, the alleged scene of the crime was Mombasa and therefore he should have been arraigned in a Kenyan court. In Kenya, attempts to get comments from Inspector-General of Police Japhet and the Directorate of Criminal Investigation boss proved futile.
“Protection racketeering is usually facilitated by senior people in the Executive or their proxies. Law enforcers like the police and army can do very little to control it. We’ve seen cases where sandalwood, ivory, lion skins or charcoal are transported from places like Kajiado, Samburu or Baringo to Nairobi. Police roadblocks are cleared to allow contraband goods to pass,” says Okumu.
Security expert and former head of security at Parliament, Solomon Obange, concedes that extortion racketeering has expanded phenomenally and it is powered by political and business interests.
Security risks
“Politics and business interests are major security risks to Kenya. Knowing the professionalism of Kenya’s security agencies, there is nothing that can get into the country without their knowledge. They are capable of repulsing any threat, but what they lack is the requisite political will,” says Obange, who is currently a leadership and governance lecturer at Africa International University in Nairobi.
According ENACT, environmental crimes are prevalent in East Africa, which has the highest score on the continent for fauna crimes (5.94) in 2023, up from 5.56 in 2021. The crimes are scored on a 0 to 10 scale.
“Tanzania (8) and Kenya (7), were identified by experts as both source and transit points for illegal wildlife trade, including the trafficking of cheetahs, elephant tusks, hippo teeth and rhino products as well as live animals, including reptiles and amphibians, destined for Asian consumer markets. Non-renewable resource crimes (5.83) were also widespread (six of the nine countries scored above 5.5 in 2023), with the most common being illicit gold trade and oil smuggling, which are facilitated by widespread corruption and the involvement of state-embedded actors,” says the report.
Extortion or protection
Data collected by Kenya National Crime Research Centre (KNCRC), Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) and human rights groups shows that extortion or protection racketeering is the fastest growing crime in Kenya. Human trafficking, organs exports, import of contraband goods (sugar, rice, maize, fertiliser) and minerals constitute the bulk of the “protection racketeering economy”.
The impact of the racketeering economy began to be felt when Somalia became the corridor through which contraband goods reached Kenya. According to Okumu, Kenyan businesses at the time would rather pay “zakat”—a form of tax businesses and political figureheads part with in exchange for protection—against hefty government taxes or arrest. The parallel taxation has been taking root in Kenya, with the GI-TOC Africa Organised Crime Index 2023 report placing Kenya in the same league with Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Extortion
The report states: “Extortion and protection racketeering was another notable criminal market in the region during the reporting period. While the average score for this criminal market is considerably lower than the criminal markets average of the region (5.52), with a score of 5.06, some countries are heavily affected by these illicit activities. Somalia, in particular, stands out ... at 9.5. The country’s score is driven by the presence of Al-Shabaab, which operates its own governance system in Somalia’s hinterland. Other countries with high extortion and protection racketeering scores include Kenya (7), where Al-Shabaab also exerts influence in the border regions with Somalia and Ethiopia (6).”
According to the report, “drivers seem to prefer being taxed for using the road when they pass through Al-Shabaab-manned checkpoints, because they pay a set amount as opposed to the government’s haphazard and inconsistent pricing system”.
On its part, KNCRC says that failure by stakeholders to fully cooperate with each other can greatly hamper the successful fight against the crime of kidnapping in society”. It urges these stakeholders to partner and mobilise resources and ensure properly coordinated efforts to fully bring under control the kidnapping menace in the country.
