Piece by: CYRUS OMBATI

23 November 2021

Police are looking for a gang that hired a taxi and later turned out to be thugs in Kayole, Nairobi.

The two men had hired the taxi to drop them in Umoja last night when they turned out to be thugs.

They threw out the driver and warned him against reporting the matter before driving off with the car.

Police say they are following crucial leads into the whereabouts of the car and suspects.

The shaken driver reported the matter to the police.

Meanwhile, a woman who was kidnapped last week as she headed to work, was rescued by detectives after a 3-hour ordeal at the hands of the kidnappers.

The woman who is a fruit vendor at City Park had woken up at the crack of dawn and rushed to the bus stop at toll station along Thika road, in a bid to catch an early bus to the city.

At the bus stop, a private vehicle make Toyota Raum KBU 265V, pulled over. The driver asked the woman whether she was headed to Nairobi and when she replied in the affirmative, he offered to drop her at Ngara adding that he was carrying two other passengers who were headed to the city.

Innocently, the fruits vendor boarded the vehicle that sped towards Nairobi. However, upon approaching Kenyatta University, the vehicle took the service lane, made a U-turn at the Engen gas station and sped towards Thika. At this point, it dawned on the woman that the occupants of the vehicle were not innocent passengers but a miscreant gang of three.

The thugs took possession of the woman’s phone and placed a call to her husband demanding a ransom of Sh30,000, failure to which they would send him her remains in a body bag.

He was further warned not to reveal anything to police lest the thugs also come for his neck.

But the husband who was determined to rescue his beloved wife disregarded their warnings and reported to DCI.

Immediately after the call, a specialized team of detectives from the Special Service Unit was scrambled and in a matter of minutes, the team was mobile towards the direction of the kidnappers.

Along the way, they were backed up by Juja based sleuths on a mission to rescue the woman. All this while, the thugs were raping the woman in turns, as they made demands for more money from the woman’s friends and relatives.

After 3 hours of intelligence leads, the thugs who kept moving from one location to another were finally cornered at a secluded spot in Kabati area in Kandara, Murang’a county. On sighting the lanky, mean-looking sleuths approaching their vehicle, the thugs attempted to flee but couldn’t match our men’s athletic capabilities.

All of them were floored a few metres from the vehicle. The 35-year-old woman was finally rescued but unfortunately, the miscreants aged between 24-27 had raped her repeatedly.

She was first rushed to the hospital for treatment as well as the suspects for the relevant medical procedures to be conducted.

Upon inspection of their motor vehicle, blood-stained knives were recovered and the vehicle’s boot was discovered to be stained with blood spots.

The vehicle was towed to DCI headquarters where it will be subjected to forensic examination to further reinforce our case against the suspects identified as David Njoroge, 27, Livingston Mwangi, 24 and Justin Charles Nyaga, 24 years.

As a precautionary measure, members of the public are advised not to board private vehicles belonging to strangers but endeavour to use public means from established operators for their safety.