Nairobi County Police Chief Benson Kibui cautions that some house helps could be colluding with criminal gangs./FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 4 – Susan Wong has lived in Kenya for the past four years in one of Nairobi’s upmarket suburbs.
A few weeks ago, she left her apartment on a weekend to go shopping. She wasn’t gone for long and when she came back, she was horrified to find her flat clean … not cleaned by her cleaner but cleaned out by burglars.
She lost electronics worth hundreds of thousands of shillings.
According to security recordings at the main gate of her apartment, the thugs arrived a few minutes after she left her flat.
“We left with my friends whom I live with…this was the first time ever since we all have different schedules. We went with my friend’s car,” she recounted.
“We left the other car at the parking…unless someone was closely monitoring us, no one could have known that we all left the house.”
She’s not alone. Cyrus lives in Kileleshwa not far from Susan’s block of apartments and left his apartment on a Saturday afternoon only to return and find his flat empty. They even carried his clothes and shoes.
Makueni Senator Mutula Kilonzo Jr suffered a similar fate some time back.
Kilonzo Junior had left the house for shopping at a nearby mall from his residence only to return and discover that there had been ‘visitors’ in his house while he was away. It was on a Sunday evening.
In this case, the attack took place in less than 20 minutes according to police.
He lost electronic appliances, mobile phones and jewellery valued at more than Sh300,000 and Sh20,000 in cash.
Nathan Colett also a resident of Langata had a similar experience on a weekend too.
Crime knows no boundaries nor social status; on February 23, Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to Kenya Wahidur Rahman was attacked by thugs at his Nairobi’s Karen home where he was robbed of cash and other electronic items.
The High Commissioner was slightly injured during the incident that occurred at about 10 pm.
The thugs are reported to have stolen Sh170,000, a television set and other items from the High Commissioner’s residence, according to police. Such occurrences are slowly becoming rampant in leafy suburbs with no arrest or recovery of the stolen property.
Police statistics show up to seven incidents are recorded weekly and there has been no recovery so far.
All the robberies have a hallmark. No force is used and the thugs appear to know the victims are not at home. How is this possible yet these apartments are guarded?
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