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A decision by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to declare a self-styled private investigator a wanted criminal has opened a can of worms on the bizarre relationship between some members of law enforcement agencies and their supposed informers.
BACKSTABBING
On Wednesday, the DCI, in a series of tweets, ordered the arrest of Ms Jane Wawira Mugo, the chief executive of Trimo Security Ltd, saying she is wanted for robbery with violence, impersonation and threatening to kill. Ms Mugo is well known in media circles through dozens of interviews.
The arrest order, the Nation has learnt, was issued just three days after Ms Mugo filed a complaint at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) with explosive details that have opened a window on how detectives work with informers.
The complaint, which we have seen, is replete with allegations of bribery, scaremongering, spying, backstabbing and other complex underhand tactics used in the course of investigations.
On Tuesday, the chief magistrate’s court in Milimani issued a warrant of arrest against the private investigator for failing to present herself in court to take plea on September 10. Consequently in a quick turn of events, the DCI said Ms Mugo, who has in the past claimed to have worked with State investigators on a number of cases, was a “serial criminal”.
“On August 15, Ms Jane Wawira Mugo, while at New Muthaiga estate, drew a pistol and threatened to kill a man on allegations that he was spying for a relative of the director in a company where she was the private investigator,” said the DCI of Ms Mugo, who has since gone into hiding.
DCI also stated that Ms Mugo had previously been arraigned for various offences but the cases were withdrawn. For instance, “She is accused of abducting a Nairobi businessman, locking him in her office at Baba Dogo and forcing him to pay a debt of Sh400,000.”
APPREHENSIVE
It is, however, emerging that Ms Mugo could have known what was coming and filed a case against the DCI on Monday, just a day before she was supposed to appear in court for allegedly drawing a gun on a security guard in Muthaiga.
She also filed a complaint seeking asylum at KNCHR, where she accused some DCI officers of intimidating her over a case she was handling for a client who was allegedly being harassed by the police.
Interestingly, it is the same case in which she is supposed to take plea for threatening a guard with a gun. In a sworn affidavit, Ms Mugo says she fell out with the police over a job she carried out for a British national, Mr Valab Haribhai, who had issues with some family members.
“Following the petitioner’s success, the petitioner has constantly been tracked in her movements by vehicles which she is apprehensive of carrying the officers who seek to stop her at all costs,” says Ms Mugo in documents filed in court.
For her complaint with KNCHR, she gave a detailed description of how she has allegedly worked with the police before in several cases and how they fell out.
BAR MAID
Ms Mugo claims that on the directions of a senior officer who has since retired, she worked undercover as a bar maid in western Kenya in order to trail a murder suspect in 2015.
The investigations led her to Kawangware, where she helped trail the suspect to a church before he was arrested.
In another instance in 2015, she claimed to have worked with some officers to recover Sh50 million from advocates who had been paid more than Sh250 million by a senior politician for land in Upper Hill but did not remit the full amount to the family of a former prisons boss who was selling the property.
She says they were supposed to split Sh5 million, which was 10 per cent of that amount. She says she later learnt that a senior officer went back to the complainants and forced them to part with another Sh10 million.
In yet another case, she claims she worked with investigators in helping to nail some of the suspects in the NYS scandals. She says that through her assistance, detectives were able to identify some accounts where the NYS money had been deposited. She says she was supposed to be paid Sh1 million for the job but received only Sh200,000.