NAIROBI, Kenya, March 31 – The Administration Police now says the crime involving Sh36 million supposedly stolen under the custody of and escort of administration officers was not an inside job.
Speaking during a press conference on Saturday, AP spokesman, Masoud Mwinyi said the incident was likely undertaken by masqueraders posing as AP officers.
He said preliminary investigations has revealed that the fire arms recovered were not official AP issue and that even the names of officers given out did not exist.
“The people who perpetrated these crimes were not our officers and they may rightly have been people posing as officers and therefore total imposters and criminals,” he stated.
“This fact is reinforced by our investigations into our preliminary findings which reveal that the firearms for example which were said to have been assigned to this task were found to be in a totally different area from where the money was found to be stolen,” he said.
He stated that investigations are currently underway to get to the bottom of the incident.
“Further to this, to reinforce that these were actually not our officers, the names given were also not belonging to any officers who are under the establishment of the unit which is charged with the responsibility of cash in transit,” he said.
“We want to confirm to the Kenyan public in general and the direct recipient of our Cash In Transit services that investigations are currently underway to get to the bottom of this matter.”
The money which had been stolen Friday while on transit to Garissa from Nairobi was recovered on Friday evening at Ndarugo area within Mang’u, off the Thika superhighway.
The money totaling Sh36.4 million was being transported by security firm Wells Fargo and was diverted by people alleged to be Administration Police officers who abandoned the van carrying it and fled after failing to access the cash box.
The money in a blue cash box that was locked with two padlocks was found abandoned less than 500 metres from the Thika superhighway, in one of the major security operations conducted in the country lately.
Police said it took them more time to get the money because a tracking devise installed on the Cash in Transit vehicle kept misdirecting them.
The second vehicle, a chase car was found abandoned at Bendoh estate in Thika town where one security officer was found handcuffed and locked up inside.
A police officer who was among the first detectives to arrive at the scene said the crew members had their eyes sealed with a masking tape.
On interrogation, the Wells Fargo crew members told police they picked up the money from their offices on Mombasa road in the morning and set off for the journey to Garissa.
One of the AP officers on the way said he wanted to pick a letter at Juja and when they stopped, a black vehicle stopped next to them with six people on board and that is when one of them jumped and took control of the vehicle carrying the cash, the other ones entered the other vehicle and sped off to Thika where they abandoned a crew member and fled.
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