BY JEFF OTIENO IN KISUMU

A group of conmen who have of late taken the Lake Side city of Kisumu by storm for the last 1 year were ultimately arrested over the weekend.

The cartel which has been targeting leading Hotels in the city were this time round unlucky when they met the full wrath of the hawk eyed Kisumu police led by the Provincial Police Officer (P.P.O) Antony Kibuchi.

It all started at the magnificent Sunset Hotel on Sunday morning when the trio, two gentlemen and a young lady who were identified as Tanzanian Nationals went to the Hotel pretending to be looking for a guest who had spent there the previous night.

At the Hotel, they went straight into the breakfast room and placed an order which they didn’t take. They instead sneaked into the lift to go upstairs to accomplish their mission.

Their agenda up the ladder took a stunning four minutes and they left bagging something and took off in a car with a foreign number plate T254 ARM tinted grey in colour.

Stung by the rush, the management went into the rooms to peruse what could have transpired and found that the trio had forcefully entered into one of the rooms and took an Ipod and a laptop of a lady foreigner working with Catholic Relief Services.

The management of the Hotel promptly alerted the Police who moved in and arrested the tormenting cartel. They were positively identified and even the gadget they used to open the room was found in their vehicle.

They were immediately taken to court and charged and later given a bond of kshs.50,000 each.

Hotels in the city are on record to have sacked their workers on suspicion that they are the ones who are stealing from the clients in the rooms.

Sources confided to this writer that members of this group were once deeply involved in another illegal trade (wash wash) –imposters operating as money minters in the lakeside city and its environs fleecing people but ceased to operate courtesy of adverse publicity from Kisumu based journalists.

To add credence to the claim that the gang is linked to the once notorious wash wash group, precincts of Kisumu court was literally packed to capacity on Monday this week by the said members who were trying to salvage part of their conduit.

Its worth noting and interesting that in a span of one week they have stormed Sunset,Vunduba and Imperial Hotels posing as customers. At Imperial Hotel a Swiz National who is an Engineer by Professional by the name Evan met the wrath of this entrenched cartel when he lost about kshs.100,000 and a laptop in his room

END

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Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 04:56:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: JEFF
Subject: CONMEN NABBED BY KISUMU POLICE