Crime

23 September 2021

Drama erupted after a distraught husband rushed to the police station to report that his wife is being held for ransom and the kidnappers want Ksh 200,000.

Brian Mutuku was worried when his wife, Jane Wairimu Ndung’u disappeared last Friday, September 17.

Mutuku received a call from his wife who sounded panic-stricken, claiming to have been kidnapped by unknown people who were demanding Sh200,000 as ransom. She claimed to have been kidnapped as she was walking along Loita street, in Nairobi’s central business district.

Shell shocked, Mutuku rushed to file a missing person’s report at DCI Embakasi. However, as the detectives were pursuing the suspects, Wairimu’s kin and the husband raised Sh17,000 and sent it to the alleged kidnappers.

According to the DCI, "Unbeknownst to them, Wairimu had eloped with a cab driver to his one-roomed abode in Malaa, where they were enjoying soft life unperturbed, after withdrawing the sent amount.

As days went by, the family became impatient and formed a WhatsApp group to make contributions towards her release.

A further Sh40,000 was sent on Monday and the two travelled from Malaa to Mtito-a-Ndei to withdraw the money, ostensibly to distract our eagle-eyed detectives who were on their trail. They were deeply misguided!"

As the detectives from Special Service Unit and Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau were about to pounce on the duo, there was a sudden turn of events.

The alleged kidnapper Richard Mogire had promised his 21-year-old girlfriend a student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology that he would take her out over the weekend.

The girlfriend kept calling and sending him messages asking him why he had stood her up. Mogire tried to explain that he would make it up to her this coming weekend but she would hear none of it and demanded that he picks her up, lest she leaves him.

Afraid of losing his main, Mogire who is a man of many abilities changed the vehicle he was earlier using to avoid detection, picked his lovestruck main girlfriend from the Juja based university and went with her to the one-roomed house where he had stayed with Wairimu since her faked disappearance.

As detectives later established after arresting them, "the three had stayed together in the one-roomed abode since Monday, until Wednesday afternoon when they were apprehended in Sagana.

How Mogire convinced his campus girl to hang on and play ball yet she wasn’t part of the initial plan, still remains a puzzle.

Wairimu explained that she had forced her disappearance to get away from creditors, who were on her neck since she lost her job."

The three are currently at Embakasi police station, being processed for arraignment in court today.