Police in Murang’a arrested a suspected leader of an organised gang in the county after luring him out of his hideout using a policewoman posing as a sex worker.
John Ngugi Maina, the alleged leader of Jeshi ya Gaica gang that mainly operates in Maragua town, was captured on Sunday when he took the undercover policewoman to a bar for some drinks.
An arrest warrant had been issued against Maina after he skipped a court case in which he is facing chang’aa-related charges. He had been arrested on April 21 and granted a Sh30,000 bond by a Kigumo court.
After absconding the court mention on July 26, the court directed Maragua Police Station to arrest Maina by September 5 and arraign him.
Murang’a South Police Commander Alexander Shikondi lamented that tracking the suspect wasn’t easy because he barely stayed in one place for a long time.
The police boss noted that “tracking a highly mobile suspect is very problematic and frustrating”.
“For one month, this man remained elusive, our officers getting intelligence that he was being seen in sex workers’ dens in town but every time we showed up, he would be gone,” Shikondi added.
Riding a motorcycle, Maina would reportedly take sex workers to his hideouts in the bushes and bring them back to town.
So elusive and daring was Maina that sometimes he would ride by the police station.
“In fact, we would be told that sometimes he would pass near the police station hooting just to irritate us,” Shikondi said.
He said they decided to change tack by using Maina’s Achilles heel against him. “We decided to utilise his womanising weakness to nab him,” Shikondi said.
Police devised a trap that involved a policewoman attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Kiambu County. She called Maina and introduced herself as a woman he had met in Kenol town.
“We were following the conversation and though he first hesitated, the womanising weakness in him made him drop his guard and he agreed to show up in town for a meeting, warning that he would not be staying long,” Shikondi said.
Maina arrived in town within 20 minutes and was reportedly smitten by the chocolate-faced officer who was posing as a sex worker.
“He forgot that he was a fugitive … he led ‘his’ woman into a nearby bar and ordered… They were on their second drink each when three officers showed up and cuffed him. He is now in custody and will resume defending himself in his criminal case reference 388/22 at the Kigumo courthouse,” Shikondi said.
Police say Jeshi ya Gaica engages in brewing and selling illicit brews and narcotics. They reportedly switch to robberies whenever police crackdown on their chang’aa dens.
On August 18, three of the gang members were arrested near Thika town as they robbed motorists and pedestrians while armed with a toy pistol.
Two days earlier, two others were arrested as they attempted to exhume the body of a tycoon who had been buried in an expensive casket, which they allegedly wanted to steal.
