The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has revealed the faces of suspects behind several car breakings linked to syndicates of notorious city thugs stealing from locked motor vehicles.
The thugs include 42-year-old Amos Odera Audo who was featured in various crime footages.
Odera was ambushed at his Kaloleni hideout around the City Stadium in Nairobi.
Another accomplice John Musiyo Mbingu was also arrested at a Kibera court where he was appearing for hearing in a similar car breaking charge.
However, the DCI says disappeared after he was released on police bail to seek medication and a warrant of arrest has been issued against him.
Detectives are currently in pursuit of other two known accomplices and recipients of the stolen valuables continue.
The DCI further indicates that, the thugs are believed to have a common market for stolen items mostly targeted shoppers’ vehicles at supermarket parking spaces, and bank customers withdrawing huge sums of cash.
Other targets include motorists in whose vehicles items of value such as laptops, tablets and expensive smartphones could be seen from outside.
“From using catapults and spark plugs to break car windows to mastering car door locks, the dreadful rings moved with impunity across high end spots within the capital, to the terror and discomfort of city dwellers,” says the DCI.
The DCI went further to highlight some of the incidents including the theft of Ksh1.5 million from a DTB bank client after a gang of four broke into his Mazda CX5 in Nairobi’s Parklands area.
“Weeks earlier, another viral footage that was also shared in the DCI social media platforms had made rounds showing a ring of car breakers stealing from a locked motor vehicle in Nairobi West,” DCI stated
In the incident, the victim had left some Ksh466,000 which he had withdrawn from a bank, a school bag, a laptop valued at Ksh105,000 and his mobile phone as he went to a supermarket only to return and find all of the items missing.
The unbecoming surge saw the DCI dispatch a team from the Operations directorate which nabbed the infamous catapult gang, as detectives in Lang’ata pursued suspects in the highlighted case.
