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Why Boinnet is getting own intelligence officers


About 150 intelligence collection detectives have been deployed to the office of Inspector General of Police.

The officers drawn mostly from the General Service Unit (GSU) and the Anti-Stock Theft Unit (ASTU) have joined the Strategic Early Warning Systems (Sews) after being trained on investigations and intelligence collection.

The team will be reporting directly to the Inspector General Joseph Boinnet, according to the police headquarters.

In a signal dated July 22, the Deputy Inspector General Joel Kitili directed that the officers be deployed with immediate effect. Only four of the officers are of the rank of a Corporal while the rest are Police Constables.

The unit was unveiled in early 2014 but was disbanded in November the same year following turf wars. The first lot was trained in April 2014.

SECURITY BRIEFS

It was created after concerns that the then IG David Kimaiyo was not getting timely security briefs from other units because they had to report to their seniors first before the reports are passed on to police headquarters.

About 150 officers who had been trained were instead directed to report to the head of the Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters for transfers.

Senior officers at the DCI felt that the new unit was meant to counter them and were not happy with the idea.

The CIU officers have been equipped with, among other things, phone number trackers that allow them to quickly locate a caller’s geographical location.

In some cases, they have been accused of tracking criminals but failing to report and resorting to extortion.