Tag Archives: Harun Mwau

Eastern Africa’s Heroine Coast

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ENACT has a great report out on heroine trafficking along the eastern seaboard of Africa (most of the heroine comes from Afghanistan):

Screen Shot 2018-07-02 at 10.28.08 AM.pngIn recent years, the volume of heroin shipped from Afghanistan along a network of maritime routes in East and southern Africa appears to have increased considerably. Most of this heroin is destined for Western markets, but there is a spin-off trade for local consumption. An integrated regional criminal market has developed, both shaping and shaped by political developments in the region. Africa is now experiencing the sharpest increase in heroin use worldwide and a spectrum of criminal networks and political elites in East and southern Africa are substantially enmeshed in the trade. This report focuses on the characteristics of the heroin trade in the region and how it has become embedded in the societies along this route. It also highlights the features of the criminalgovernance systems that facilitate drug trafficking along this coastal route.

The report provides a detailed analysis of the political economy of drug trafficking in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. Among these countries, only Tanzania’s political elites appear to not have links to known drug barons.

In the specific case of Kenya:

Between 2001 and 2008, there were numerous public allegations of drug trafficking in Kenya, and several MPs and their associates were named. Of those listed in a US embassy report, and subsequently named in Parliament as being linked to the narcotics trade, six are current or former holders of political office. Among them, five have held (or still do hold) political office in Kenya’s Eastern Province: William Kabogo, former Kiambu County governor; Gideon Mbuvi (alias Mike Sonko), 2nd Governor of Nairobi; John Harun Mwau, former assistant minister and former MP for Kilome; Simon Mbugua, former MP for Kamukunji (in Nairobi); and Mary Wambui, former MP for Othaya.

From the coastal region, Ali Hassan Joho, Governor of Mombasa, and his brother Abubakar, as well as Mombasa businessman Ali Punjani, were also named as prominent drug traffickers in the same report (in fact, the US report allegedly claims that Punjani and several other traffickers funded Ali Hassan Joho’s 2007 campaign to win a seat as an MP for Mombasa). Harun Mwau, along with businesswoman Mwanaidi Mfundo (alias Mama Lela), who is now in prison in Tanzania on drug-trafficking charges, were listed as drug ‘kingpins’ by the US in 2011. All have denied these allegations. A subsequent investigation into claims made in the Kenyan Parliament by police was said to have absolved them, but in very controversial circumstances.

Harun Mwau, perhaps the most prominent figure caught up in these allegations, has been widely cited by our interlocutors as an early ‘model’ of how to combine the shadow economy, politics and business. Mwau has repeatedly denied being involved in drug trafficking. He is a prominent businessman and former shareholder in the region’s biggest supermarket chain, Nakumatt (holding shares worth US$10 million, which he has since offloaded). He owned a bank (Charterhouse), and has had a varied political career: he headed the anticorruption agency and was a national lawmaker; he also ran for president. He was a major funder of Mwai Kibaki’s election campaign as president and was subsequently appointed as assistant transport minister, a position in which he appears to have been responsible for Kenya’s container transport arrangements and for the Kenya Ports Authority, which controls all ports of entry and inland container terminals in Kenya. Mwau resigned from this position after being named in Parliament as being linked to drug trafficking. For many years, Mwau operated an inland container depot at Athi River on the outskirts of Nairobi, known as the Pepe Container Freight Station.

The whole report is worth reading.

Africa’s budding narco-states?

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UPDATE:

The Kenyan Prime Minister just admitted to the presence of drug money in Kenyan politics. Huge. Also, check the UNODC’s drug trafficking patterns for East Africa.

Also, does anyone out there have a copy of the report on drug trafficking in Kenya? Care to share?

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I have written before about the growing problem of drug-trafficking that is creating new problems for already fragile African states.

Of note is the fact that the problem is not just limited to the usual suspects – weak or failing states – but also extends to countries that most would consider to have it together, like Ghana, South Africa and Kenya.

According to Reuters, “cocaine moves through West Africa” while “heroin transits through the eastern part of the continent.”

The most alarming thing about this new trend is that in most of these African countries drug-trafficking happens with the consent of those in government.

For instance, in Guinea the son of former president Conte was for a long time a leading drug kingpin. In Guinea-Bissau President Vieira’s and Gen. Na Waie’s deaths in March of last year were a result of drug-related feuds. In Ghana President Atta Mills has lamented that the drug lords are too powerful to rein in. In Kenya, a woman (rumored to be) close to the president and other elites have been linked to the drug trade. Indeed on June 1st President Obama listed a sitting Kenyan Member of Parliament (Harun Mwau) as a global drug kingpin.

In South Africa former Chief of Police, Jackie Selebi, was jailed for 10 years in 2010 on drug charges. More recently the wife of the South African Intelligence Minister (Sheryl Cwele) was found guilty of having connections to the illicit trade. In 2009 a Boeing 727 crashed and was later set ablaze by suspected drug traffickers in Mali. The plane is believed to have been a drug cargo plane from Latin America destined for Europe. Other African states whose drug connections have also come to light include The Gambia (where rumors abound that President Jammeh is himself involved in the trade in drugs and arms in collusion with the Bissauian army) and Mozambique (H/T kmmonroe). You can find related news stories here and here.

Clearly, this is a real problem that if not nipped in the bud has the potential of growing to Mexican proportions, especially considering the already low levels of state capacity in most of Africa.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy also addresses this issue in their newly released report:

In just a few years, West Africa has become a major transit and re-packaging hub for cocaine following a strategic shift of Latin American drug syndicates toward the European market. Profiting from weak governance, endemic poverty, instability and ill-equipped police and judicial institutions, and bolstered by the enormous value of the drug trade, criminal networks have infiltrated governments, state institutions and the military. Corruption and money laundering, driven by the drug trade, pervert local politics and skew local economies.

A dangerous scenario is emerging as narco-traffic threatens to metastasize into broader political and security challenges. Initial international responses to support regional and national action have not been able to reverse this trend. New evidence suggests that criminal networks are expanding operations and strengthening their positions through new alliances, notably with armed groups. Current responses need to be urgently scaled up and coordinated under West African leadership, with international financial and technical support. Responses should integrate
law enforcement and judicial approaches with social, development and conflict prevention policies – and they should involve governments and civil society alike.

The messy story of drug trafficking in kenya (will Lucy spill the beans?)

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The story of powerful and connected drug lords running amok in Kenya is slowly trending into the realm of conspiracy theories. First it was a case of MPs – Kabogo, Mbuvi “Sonko”, Mwau and Joho – being the suspected culprits. But after a government report cleared the names of the MPs (on the grounds that no evidence was found against them) it emerged (according to Kabogo and Mbuvi) that President Mwai Kibaki’s infamous “mistress” Mary Wambui and her daughter Winnie Wangui Mwai were also connected to drug-trafficking.

Interestingly, in 2007 a parliamentary report linked Ms Wambui, her daughter and President Kibaki’s principal political adviser Stanley Murage to the thuggish Artur brothers. Quoting the parliamentary committee report:

Evidence adduced before the Committee established that the Artur brothers had direct connection at the highest levels of Government. Mary Wambui and her daughter Winnie Wangui Mwai, were close associates of the Artur brothers. Mr. Stanley Murage, Permanent Secretary and Special Adviser to the President on Strategy and based at State House was a key player in the saga, As will appear elsewhere in this report, the ultimate questions are: what did the Head of Government know about this matter? When did he get to know it and what did he do about it?

The report proceeds…

Artur brothers were enjoying state protection at the highest levels of Government. These involved the registration of their two companies, Kensingston Holdings Ltd and Brother Link International, importation of goods where tax was not paid as well as their strange appointment to the police force as Deputy Commissioners of Police, their use of government vehicles, amongst many others

The report concludes on page 39:

From the evidence adduced to date before the Committee, the gravity of this mater (sic) has emerged. It is for example abundantly clear that the two brothers were conmen and drug traffickers. That they enjoyed protection by the high and mighty in the Government is not in doubt.

The report does not say anything implicating President Kibaki in drug trafficking. But it certainly raises questions about how it is that the Kenyan security authorities have been able to unearth evidence about the involvement of all sorts of actors (from the military to police officers to government bureaucrats) linked to drug trafficking without finding a single individual guilty of an offense.

It might be time Kenyans consulted First Lady Lucy Kibaki about the activities and business relations of her much-hated “co-wife.”

suspected drug trafficking kenyan mps named in parliament

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John Harun Mwau, William Kabogo, Gideon “Sonko” Mbuvi and Suleiman Joho are the four MPs suspected of being drug traffickers. Prof. George Saitoti, Minister for Internal Security, made the announcement in parliament. Of the four Mr. Mwau’s mention shocked me the most. For some reason I thought his wealth was exclusively from his business skills and sleaze during the Moi era. Messrs Mbuvi and Kabogo have always had rumors of shadiness around them, with the former being a bona fide jailbird. Other suspected MPs include Eugene Wamalwa and Simon Mbugua.

Drug use is on the rise in Kenyan urban centres. It is a shame that it took the intervention of the US Ambassador for the Kenyan security agencies to expose those involved in the destruction of Kenyan lives.

This is yet another example of how the people entrusted with the future of Kenya are the same ones actively undermining it through sleaze, negligence and outright criminality.

More on this here.

where is John Harun Mwau

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This morning as I was trying to read on the parliamentary reform strategy, I took time to look at the list of members of parliament. Following the 2007 election, a lot of newbies joined the list. But the list also has those who have been household names since the Moi era. One of these old guards is John Harun Mwau, the honorable member of parliament for Kilome.

Back in the day he was a permanent fixture in the news. But since the last election he has gone completely MIA. Where is he? And whatever happened to his reform agenda?