Officers manning the Mtwapa weighbridge flagged down a Probox carrying bhang from Mombasa to an unknown destination for a routine check at about 5 p.m. on 29 August 2017, and the driver jumped out of the window and into the sea, escaping arrest.[1] Police towed the vehicle to Mtwapa police station and searched for the driver.[1] Kilifi police boss Alexander Makau told Baraka FM by phone that 3,120 rolls were packed in five 100 kg bags with a street value of Sh600,000, and warned that police were on high alert along the busy Malindi highway.[1]
A second report of the same interception gives 3,155 rolls of bhang with a street value of Sh1 million, concealed in bags and stopped at a roadblock on the Mombasa highway in Mtwapa.[2] It says the driver abandoned the vehicle and fled, that the drugs were being ferried from Mombasa to an unknown location in Kilifi County, and that anti-narcotics officers suspected him of being a wanted trafficker who had escaped dragnets before.[2]
Suspect charged
Kennedy Barasa Wanyonyi appeared before Shanzu principal magistrate Diana Mochache on 4 September and pleaded not guilty to trafficking in bhang valued at 600,000.[3] The charge sheet says that on 29 August in Mtwapa Township along the Mombasa-Malindi road he was found ferrying bhang in a Probox concealed in five sacks.[3] The magistrate remanded him to Shimo La Tewa prison after the prosecution argued he was a flight risk, with the matter set for mention on 8 September.[3]
