REVEALED: Nyeri slums used as hideouts by wanted Nairobi criminals
Slums in Nyeri have turned into hideouts for some of Nairobi’s most wanted criminals, police have revealed.
The slums, Witemere, Kiawara, Ngangarithi, Kangemi and Majengo, have been classified by police as the favorite hideouts for criminals, most of whom are on the wanted list for crimes committed in Nairobi and central Kenya.
A number of estates around Nyeri town, including Kamakwa and Skuta, have also been fingered as potential hideouts.
EVADE DRAGNETS
According to police sources, armed criminals operating in Nairobi and Kiambu counties usually escape to Nyeri to evade police dragnets.
A source who spoke on condition of anonymity said most of the criminals are from Nyeri who horned their skills in local gangs before moving to the big city.
“Most of the profiled criminals come from Nyeri. They operate in Nairobi and when they realize they are about to be caught or when police operations are heightened, they run to these slums in Nyeri to lay low,” said the source who cannot be named because he is not cleared to address the media on police investigations.
Poor accessibility and high population density gives the criminals an edge over detectives to escape in case they are tracked down.
Two of the most wanted men criminals in Nyeri town, identified by their aliases Talanta and Jamaica, and who are said to be responsible for a series of violent robberies in Nyeri town, have somehow managed to evade police efforts to arrest them in the slums.
The Divisional Commanding Officer in charge of Nyeri Central Masai Makau explained how the criminals have recruited lookouts and devised modes of communication to alert them of the presence of any police officers in the slums.
HIRED SPIES
They are said to even hire street children to act as spies on police activities or the presence of unfamiliar faces in the slums.
“They are very fast in communicating and whenever an unfamiliar face is spotted they will vanish. They have lookouts everywhere,” said Mr Makau.
So good are the onlookers that they are able to spot out even plain cloth detectives. They seemingly have a tight understanding of who the true slum dwellers are.
“They know the people they live with, so any unfamiliar face automatically raises a red flag,” said the area OCPD.
On four separate occasions last month three of the most wanted criminals managed to escape police ambush in operations organised by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).
In all incidents they escaped through the slums where they knew police will not engage them in a gunfight.
SHOOTOUT
“Police officers cannot continue firing live bullets in a densely habited area because innocent people could get injured in the shootout. The criminals know this and they try to use it to their advantage,” said Mr Makau.
“There are so many scattered slums in Nyeri which makes policing quite challenging because community policing in those areas is rather inactive,” he added.
Police have warned that the criminals are heavily armed and dangerous but maintained that efforts to apprehend them are underway.