Hizi heist zimekua kibao jo! maybe its coz deal za corruption zimekua mega, maybe its coz they have been listening to gangsta rap, maybe its coz the money was just there begging to be stolen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x701Kk4aqoQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8GgunjEJA8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYCGWdlzKwM
welcome to TBT
At a time when gun robberies were a novel headache to State security, Peter Mwea Wakinyonga and Gerald Wambugu Munyeria alias ‘Wanugu’ ranked as the most wanted gangsters.
Wakinyonga and Wanugu were in the mid-1970s and 90s respectively the most hunted-down criminals who besides their infamy, had a lot in common even as they went ‘mute’ under hails of bullets.
The two lived off crime albeit at separate times but interestingly, the police killed them on the same date eighteen years apart.
Wakinyonga ruled in the world of crime in the 70s and was listed as the first most notorious gangster of the time while Wanugu reigned in the 90s, in collaboration with the likes of Bernard Matheri Thuo alias ‘Rasta’, Anthony Ngugi Kanagi alias ‘Wacucu.
When police killed Wanugu, Police Commissioner Shadrack Kiruki declared him the second worst gangster after Wakinyonga who had been killed exactly 18 years earlier.
Wakinyonga, who hailed from Kangemi was linked to several bank raids and car thefts particularly in Nairobi. He reportedly ‘robbed from the rich then gave to the poor’.
He had escaped police dragnets for a while. At one time five months to his death he fled with bullet wounds on his buttocks and the right collarbone. His accomplice was however killed. He would, three months later shoot and injure a police sergeant.
He was hunted for robbing Sh330,000 from a bank in Thika, Sh200,000 from a city bank branch along Wabera Street, another Sh80,000, several car thefts and murdering a Mr Bloch before taking away his car.
Police armed to the teeth and on a tip-off traced Wakinyonga to Nyakiambi Lodge and Nightclub in Kangemi, Nairobi on June 26, 1978 midnight, then surrounded it.
The pub was full to capacity with revelers enjoying his generosity. Interestingly, Wakinyonga had already dug his grave near his father’s and had sworn to kill a police officer before he died.
Coincidentally, at the pub he was boasting that he would shoot and kill the one famous officer, Patrick Shaw. While still binge-drinking, he noticed an officer, grabbed a machine gun from him but the officer pulled out a revolver, prompting an exchange of gunfire and confusion.
The dramatic firing lasted for a while before Wakinyonga was overpowered shortly after midnight on June 27 and the police recovered a revolver and several rounds of ammunition. Three bystanders, including a woman, suffered injuries. Drama would follow his burial as police made unanticipated swoop targeting young men and women.
A couple of years later, his replica would emerge in the name of Wanugu, wanted criminal who hailed from Kamuyu in Nyeri.
By the time Wakinyonga was ‘silenced’, Wanugu was just a clueless eight-year-old boy but as fate would have it, he fitted in the former thug’s shoes to second him in the record of most wanted gangsters in Kenya’s history of crime.
The former city mechanic-cum-tout was in the infamous group of Wacucu and Rasta that proved much a thorn in the flesh between 1995 and 1996.
On August 21, 1995 then Police Commissioner Kiruki released the names of the three terming them the most wanted criminals. Besides, a Sh100,000 bounty was placed on their heads.
They were accused of murdering high-profile civilians and senior police and military officers, violent robberies and carjacking mostly in the city. This was to mark the beginning of a massive manhunt.
Wanugu was also accused of murdering a Nyahururu based European expatriate Christopher Morris. He too escaped several police traps, at one point escaping death narrowly at Ongata Rongai when police busted them. His accomplice Wacucu was killed instantly during the fierce shoot out.
However, his hideaway was unmasked on June 27, 1996 as a team of flying squad on public tip-off tracked Wanugu to his rented abode at Kabati-ini, Nakuru. Armed Wanugu accompanied by his girlfriend on errands run into the elite squad.
Sensing danger he grabbed his fiancé as a human shield as he fired back at the police. This did not deter the police from reciprocating and in a matter of minutes the two lay dead their bodies riddled with bullets.
Interestingly, like Wakinyonga who had prepared his resting place in advance, Wanugu too had expressed premonition of his dead end in writing a few months earlier.
However, being just civilians without military and weaponry training, their unrivalled tactics startled the security apparatus.
He was ‘heroically’ laid to rest by scores of mourners who attended his burial as police celebrated his demise, describing him as the second worst underworld figure after his ‘role model’.
Now 34 and 16 years since the celebrated villains in crime were hushed, up their stories are still narrated albeit at times spiked with hyperboles.
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Kenya has had many criminals, like Dan Gachui, whose daring bank heists was the reason the Kenyatta government declared ‘robbery with violence’ a capital offence.
Gachui, who was wanted for 10 robberies, a murder and relieving cops of their machine guns, was gunned down by fearless reservist Patrick Shaw in Nairobi’s South C estate in 1977.
That was also the year Nicholas Mwea ‘Wakinyonga’ was gunned down by Shaw while celebrating at Nyakiambi Lodge & Night Club, the spot where Co-operative Bank now stands in Kangemi.
But if there ever were thugs who kept Kenyans talking, waiting while wailing (when they came calling), then it was the three musketeers - Anthony Ngugi Kanagi (Wacucu), Gerald Wambugu Munyeria (Wanugu) and Bernard Matheri Thuo (Rasta). They instilled fear in Kenyans between 1993 and1997. That was 18 years after ‘Wakinyonga’ was gunned down.
Their names were deceptive and misleading, such as Wacucu, which literally means ‘of the grandma’ and Wanugu, which directly translates to ‘of the monkey.’ And Rasta’s mean look was underscored by his dreadlocks.
Rasta, who got sick for lack of tobacco supplies, is said to have given his girlfriend an AK-47 rifle as a gift since flowers and chocolate were too common!
Alpha Romeo squad
Shadrack Kiruki, the Police Commish at the time, put a Sh100,000 bounty on their collective heads for high profile murders, violent robberies and carjacking. A dramatic countrywide manhunt saw them escape cop dragnets after fierce shootouts.
But they all met their waterloo under Daniel Seronei’s Alpha Romeo squad from the CID (now the Directorate of Criminal Investigations) after six months.
Wacucu, the ringleader was killed in Ongata Rongai where Wanugu escaped. He had a bullet proof vest. Wanugu was eventually gunned down at Kabata-ini in Nakuru (where he used his girlfriend as a human shield).
It took a year for Alpha Romeo to track and gun down Rasta, who removed nails from his victims in his rural Kiria-ini, Murang’a County.
Rasta could, man solo, empty a whole magazine on cops who scampered for safety. He cared less for the GSU as well whom he countered with a grenade at the GSU headquarters after his henchmen were killed at the GSU Roundabout in 1996.
Rasta was said to bribe cops for info on how the Flying Squad was tracking him hence the 12 months of being on the run.
Other crooks later came into the picture. These included Simon Gitau ‘Saitoti,’ Edward Maina Shimoli, Godfrey Mulwa Kitheka, Daniel Cheruiyot and the notorious Simon Matheri Ikeere. But none can hold a candle to the ‘three musketeers.’
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[SIZE=7]7 Most Badass Kenyan Gangsters[/SIZE]
Kenyan gangsters are the stuff of legend. Their exploits often follow a Robinhood-style trajectory, with gangsters working as ‘wealth distributors.’ Once in a while, they even make citizen arrests.
#7 Danson Gachui
Gachui had balls of steel, but he chose the wrong time to be badass. Unknown prior to June 1977, Gachui went on a rampage in Nairobi. He was fast, methodical, ruthless, and seemingly unstoppable. He intrigued the nation, with the Standard newspaper trailing his crime spree. By the time they named him ‘Nairobi’s Most Wanted Criminal’, Gachui had 10 robberies, one murder, and the unbelievable crime of stealing two machine guns from cops. The report says he ‘stole the machines guns from two police officers at gunpoint.’
Gachui’s balls were not thawed by making cops look like headless geese. He survived two shootouts, but then he made a fatal mistake. Legend has it that, bouyed by his unstoppable spree, he openly taunted PD Shaw, the legendary police reservist.
The car chase that followed ended up in South C. Gachui had comandeered an Audi and the police, presumably show with his feared Mercedes (KFH 845) were hot on his trail. Cornered, Gachui jumped out and started shooting at the police. What happened next is virtually unknown but for this single line “The officer shot the gangster through the mouth.”
#6 Wakinyonga ‘The Killer’
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When the rest of the world was busy enjoying the bond films, and the film release of the Godfather, Wakinyonga ‘The Killer’ was busy bridging the gap between the rich and the poor. Forget economic policies, Wakinyonga used to rob the rich and give money to the poor, because fuck capitalism and the laws of the land. Wakinyonga “redefined how robbers viewed violence as a tool of coercion” and sometimes, for mere adrenaline.
The Killer’s most notable escape was sometime in 1975 when he fled with a bullet wound in his right collarbone, and his ass. He stole KShs. 330, 000 from a bank in Thika, Kshs. 200, 000 from a bank in Nairobi along Wabera Street and over KShs. 80, 000 somewhere else. He also killed a man called Bloch as he attempted to steal his car.
The Killer who was killed on the night June 26th, 1978 at the Nyakiambi Lodge and Nightclub in Kangemi. Legend has it that the kill shot was taken by PD Shaw. Such reports were never confirmed, but Shaw’s exploits in Nairobi are the stuff of legend Nyakiambi closed years later and the premises are now occupied by, of all mother of ironies, a bank.
#6 Wanugu and Wacucu
In the late 1990s, a gang of four criminals made a name for themselves in Nairobi. The core group had Gerald Munyeria, or ‘Wanugu’, Anthony Kanari ‘Wacucu’ and Bernard Matheri ‘Rasta’. The fourth position was occupied by different gangsters during the years when the gang was active. Wanugu and Wacucu started out as matatu touts and then became drivers. Wacucu later became a mechanic and a Karate tutor at the Kariokor Social Hall.
Wacucu is thought to have been the leader of the gang. It is hard to find the police records detailing his rap sheet because well, the Kenyan court system decided future generations did not need to know. The criminal extraordinaire committed at least six murders, many violent robberies and bank heists. He was the first of the gang to die after he was gunned down in the far-off autonomous country of Rongai on 4th January 1996. As he fell, his comrade Wanugu stole his gun and bolted. So much for the brotherhood huh?
Six months later, a rather cozy Wanugu and his girlfriend made their way back to his house in Kabati-ini, Nakuru when they walked right into a police ambush. They had been out running errands, oblivious of the fact that he was one of the most wanted men in Kenya at the time. Flying Squad officers had tracked him down and were lying in wait of the man and his squeeze.
At some point during the shootout, Wanugu grabbed his girlfriend and used her as a human shield. In the movie version, the police let the criminal go because they do not want to harm the innocent life. In the Kenyan version though, one standing behind the other makes it a more challenging target and saves bullets.Wanugu was killed on June 27th, on the same day eighteen years after Wakinyonga.
The irony of it all? The story is told of a time when Wacucu was drinking in bar in Maragwa district when two police officer got drunk and begun to bully revelers. The leader instincts in Wacucu kicked in and ‘he tactfully disarmed them, handcuffed them and took their gun to Kandara Police Station.” Wait, WHAT?
Wacucu’s mother claimed that the body she buried was taller and darker than Wacucu, and was missing two warts her son had had since birth. Do you think he might be alive and well? And in Parliament?
#4 Rasta (and the rest of the gang)
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This is not a mug shot, this is a badass pose.
Rasta was badass, but his second wife was even more badass. Mary Wanjiku was the ultimate ride or die, the sidekick every criminal wants. One of her first crimes was a heist of her grandmother’s Shs. 70, 000. The money was actually tithe money her granny was keeping in safety.
When she gave 4, 000 bob to her mother, she told her she had found it on the road. But mothers know, mothers always know. So her mother did the silliest thing ever, she took the money to the police station (WTF!) and was rewarded.wait for it…Shs. 20 for reporting the crime. Wanjiku also stole from customers who visited her boutique which had been financed by money she stole from a petrol station owner.
Later she met and fell in love with Rasta who, since flowers and chocolate were too mainstream, gave his new fling an AK-47 as a gift to show his love (suddenly that clutch bag does not look so well-thought does it?). In 1999, years Wanjiku was arrested in a cash in transit heist gone wrong. She was jailed for seven years during which time she Found the Lord.
Another member of the group, John Kibera, was the coffin-stealer of the group, because what is a criminal gang without a man who specializes in stealing coffins. Even more interesting is that this reverse undertaker is still alive and well because, like Rastas wife, he found the Lord. The last of the Gang of Four/Five, and perhaps the least known of them all was Timothy Irungu Ndegwa. He was sentenced to death in 2002.
#3 Simon Matheri
https://owaahh.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/matheri.png?resize=238%2C277When the entry on the Most Wanted List is titled Public Enemy No. 1, then you know the police have a funky content creator for their website or the man are completely badass. Matheri begun his working life as a taxi driver in…you guessed right, Rongai. He was arrested and jailed for arson for five years at the one place where hardened criminals in KE are manufactured, Kamiti Prison.
In his short career, Matheri was said to have shot and killed or wounded: prominent African AIDS researcher, Job Bwayo; Lois Anderson, a Presbyterian missionary, and her daughter Zelda White, the wife of a U.S. embassy employee, a Carol Briggs, a missionary volunteer. He is probably the only violent robber in Kenya who once had a Wikipedia page (It has since been removed).
Matheri lived a very simple but wild life. Of all the criminals on this list, he showed the most ingenuity for someone who had never attended a military school. He had never used the front door of the house in Kitengela, and his wife of two years knew him as Matheru because there is nothing like hiding ones identity by switching a vowel.When he was killed, the only things found in the house were two mattresses, a coffee table, a sofa set, a DVD and a 14-inch TV.
The police swoop was carried out by over 100 police officers who, after riddling his body with bullets the typical Kenya police way, soiled the crime scene in unrestrained joy. They were too excited to remember to remove the handcuffs from the man they had just killed. How hard can it be to stage a he started shooting at my (m)boys and they returned fire scenario?
So the body camera crews beamed to the world had the hands stuck curiously behind because the officers had slept through their pathology class and new zero about rigor mortis. The next?day, an accomplice of his committed suicide. Unless there is an unspoken suicide pact between such criminals, the death itself was as interesting as the fact that the Gachie villagers burned his body.
#2 Shimoli ‘The Jackal’
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The Jackal, pictured here going green.
When Shimoli was released from Kamiti prison on March 15th, 2007, he had a record of having escaped from prison three times. Shimoli got his nickname from the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal because they both eluded police dragnets for a long time. Like Carlos, there is no evidence that Shimoli ever called himself ‘the Jackal.’ His litany of crime reads like a Stephen King write up, but with Shimoli most of it is likely to have been true: 14 murders, 88 rapes, drug deals and numerous bank robberies.
Any man who rapes and keeps a record is 100% psychopath. Where Carlos the Jackal evaded capture for 20 years, Shimoli was a mere ghost for ten years. He escaped after a gun battle at Uhuru Park, then shot two policemen who stopped him as he drove a stolen Mercedes. As if his three pairs of titanium testicles were not enough, Shimoli was photographed raising his middle finger several times to the police and judicial officers.
As part of his theatrics, he removed some weed from his pocket and lit it up in the courtroom The badass, albeit needlessly foolish, act got him one more year in the slammer. During the interview outside Kamiti prison, he expressed his fear that he would be killed and he was right because two months later, his body was lying on the cold tables of City Mortuary with a single bullet wound to the head.
One of his dramatic escapes from Kamiti prison was right before he was to be hanged. He had been sentenced to?death in 1996. His last escape was from a Nairobi courtroom. When he was arrested in 2002 in Kiambu, Kamiti prison officers visited the police station and identified him as the same man who had escaped death row in 1996. He was reported to have, among other people, shot his own wife in the back and killed his brother-in-law after he suspected they had betrayed him.
#1 Daniel Cheruiyot ‘Frank’
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Looks a bit fatherly, no?
No, this is not Frank Martin but I can see why you would make that error. Neither was he ever a CID detective, as he made everyone believe. He had only once been a Police Reservist who lost his job for hiring out his gun out to robbers. Cheruiyot was also soft-spoken, murderous, cunning, and meticulous.
Like Matheri and Wakinyonga, he sparingly furnished the houses he lived in. In his house in Zimmerman where he was killed in 2005, he only had a single bed, a five seater sofa set (because a gang of five is not going to sit on the floor is it now?) and a black coffee table (I am resisting referring to it as ‘a black loot-counting table’). He was also the chairman of the Imara Daima Estate Security Committee.
“Only a few metres from the Deliverance Church, and tucked away in a secluded part of the vast estate, the house has a high perimeter wall ringed with broken glass. It is less than 200 metres away from the busy Thika Highway, and boasts burglar proof doors and windows. Sandwiched between two houses, a passer-by has no view of Cheruiyot’s den, let alone the activities of its residents. The house’s backyard is, however, not barricaded with a wall like the front, and offers a possible escape route to the highway. “
He killed the first officer who went to arrest him in Imara Daima, Charles Karue and later killed Maina Cheserem. Oh, and did I mention that the police ambush and 5 hour drama was recorded on video?
You can watch it part of it here.
What more would a man who has already survived several gunfights, become a gangster complete with several homes and police murders, already using multiple phones in 2005, and died holding an Uzi sub-machine gun, do to be even more badass?
“Cheruiyot recently telephoned the control room at police headquarters and warned that he would continue killing police officers because he knows clearly that they are looking for him.”
The man who did was rewarded.
kama unataka pdf copy ya hii kitabu kuja inbox, nikiweka hapa tatumwa siberia
i pity watoto wa siku hizi, before hindanet we spent our time going through comics.
Captain Haddock was famed for his matusi
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which other matusi from the good captain can you remember?
pdf za hii bado ziko
Memories are made of this
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millenials kaa @Deorro have no clue.
saa hii amekimbia google
man…the way these storos were being narrated kwa jobless corner,tulikuwa tumetambua Shaw ni the kenyan version of chucknoris…watu walikuwa wanapiga hizi story kama movie…and the more lies and fictious yours were the more the audience you would attract
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Njoroge Mungai standing with Bruce McKenzie.
Magana Njoroge Mungai, M.D. EGH (January 7, 1926 – August 16, 2014) was a Kenyan Cabinet Minister, Member of Parliament, doctor, businessman, farmer, politician, nationalist and one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya.
Njoroge Mungai was born in Gichungo village, in Kiambu in colonial Kenya.His parents, Leah Magana and George Segeni Njoroge, were pioneer Christians who attended Church of the Torch which had been founded by the famous Church of Scotland minister, John William Arthur. In fact, the attendant at his birth was John Arthur.
Njoroge Mungai was educated at Alliance High School, Kikuyu and was part of the famous class of 1945 of which six of its 14 students were part of Kenya’s first cabinet including his good friend and later successor in the Foreign Affairs Ministry Dr. Munyua Waiyaki.] He would work as a bus driver after high school. before joining the British Overseas Airways Corporation. He wanted to travel to United States to study medicine but was denied a passport by the British authorities and he therefore attended Fort Hare University in South Africa where he studied Hygiene. His dream thereafter came true when he was accepted to Stanford Medical School where he graduated in class of 1957.
Njoroge Mungai was a first cousin to Kenya’s later first President Jomo Kenyatta. When Kenyatta was arrested, Dr. Njoroge Mungai served as his personal physician, a role he would continue in until the President’s death. He was enamored by the Kenyatta and the ideals of achieving freedom for Kenya and he joined the Kenya African National Union, Kenya’s freedom party which he served as Secretary. He was part of the Kenya Delegation that negotiated independence from Britain at the Lancaster House Conferences of 1960.
In independent Kenya, Njoroge Mungai would serve first as Minister for Health in which capacity he established Kenya’s first medical school. He was later moved to the Defence Ministry and it was during his tenure that the Shifta War between Kenya and Somalia broke out. He led a mediation team to Kinshasa which resulted in the Arusha Accords of 1967, bring a close to the conflict. But he would gain fame during his term as Minister for Foreign Affairs. An astute diplomat, he successfully lobbied to have the United Nations Environmental Programme headquartered in Nairobi. He further successfully lobbied the OAU to supply arms to forces fighting the Apartheid regime in South Africa and the Portuguese colonial regime in Mozambique. Kenya also had a seat on the Security Council during his tenure and he was instrumental in pushing for sanctions against South Africa and Southern Rhodesia.He was with Milton Obote at the Singapore Commonwealth meeting, pushing for the British to cease supplying arms to South Africa, when Idi Amin overthrew the Ugandan President. He famously restrained Obote from returning to Uganda where he would have been killed.
In business, Njoroge Mungai had a private clinic at Riruta, Nairobi, among other clinics, which he donated to the government. He would later start the Magana Farm in the 1960s from where he practiced dairy farming. In 1973, he expanded his interests to real estate and information technology through Magana Holdings Limited. He would later venture into and later flower forming Magana Flowers Kenya Limited in 1994 on an 18 hectare farm. He served as the Chairman of Servair Investment Airport Kenya Limited and was instrumental merging of airline catering company NAS with the French catering company Servair in 2010.In 2016, his named appeared in the Panama Papers data release as a shareholder of Bevatron Ltd, an offshore company with address based in Charlestown, Nevis.
Njoroge Mungai was married and had four children. He was, as at the late 1990s, estranged from his wife, Lillian Mungai, and they were engaged in court battles over some of the properties they owned jointly. In the latter years of the Kenyatta Presidency, he controversially led a faction that tried to prevent the vice president Daniel Moi from ascending to the Presidency unchallenged if Kenyatta died, a move that was thwarted by the leader of the Moi faction, AG Charles Njonjo. His opposition to South Africa and British involvement was considered one of the factors that he lost to Njonjo. In 1974, he lost his Parliamentary seat in Dagoretti South but was later nominated as a Member of Parliament.[12] He would rejoin the Cabinet in 1990 as a Minister for Environment before quitting active politics in 1997.He would come out of retirement to campaign for Uhuru Kenyatta in 2002 but Uhuru lost that election though he would win the presidency eleven years later in 2013.
Njoroge Mungai was honoured with a Commander of The National Order of Merit from the French government in April 2014 for his contribution to business, democracy and international diplomacy.[Dr. Njoroge Mungai died on August 14, 2014 at Nairobi Hospital at the age of 88. At his funeral, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta was a pall bearer of his casket in his honour. It is the first and only time a sitting President of Kenya was a pall bearer.
alafu ni ukweli ati 42 brothers wangetoka kuiba karen wapitie kibera wapatane na mtu maskini walikuwa wanakuachia pesa na ile paperbag ya green ilikuwa imechorwa cowboy side moja na side ingine calendar?
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Mr Bruce McKenzie (left) and then Vice President Daniel Moi, Circa 1969
Bruce McKenzie’s led a double life as a Kenyan cabinet minister and nominated MP, but also a secret agent of the British intelligence outfit, MI6, the Israel spy agency Mossad, and the apartheid South Africa Bureau of State Security (BOSS).
cKenzie’s activities inside Kenya, which included the Nairobi connection in the famous Entebbe hostage rescue in Uganda that became stuff of international blockbuster movies. His other exploits in the shadowy world of espionage extended to Uganda, Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), and South Africa.
When white settlers in colonial Zimbabwe unilaterally declared independence from Britain, McKenzie had proposed they be punished by secretly introducing an untreatable streak of anthrax to wipe out cattle in the colony, which at the time was the country’s economic lifeline.
South African born McKenzie and a former pilot with British Air Force settled in Kenya after World War II to do extensive farming at Solai near Nakuru town.
The extensive farm he owned has since changed hands to the family of retired President Mwai Kibaki who are now developing it into a giant real estate venture.
Towards independence, McKenzie had dabbled into politics joining the Kenya African Democratic Union before hopping onto Kenya African National Union.
There he gained quick trust of the Prime Minister and later first President Mzee Kenyatta who appointed him independent Kenya’s first Agriculture minister.
LAND TRANSFER
He was to play a leading role in the successful but controversial land transfer from the white settlers to Africans at independence.
He resigned as Cabinet minister six years later to concentrate on what he called “personal pursuits” but remained a nominated MP.
He wouldn’t appear in Parliament for as long as eight months but still got away with it, thanks to his good connections where it mattered.
But wherever he was, in or outside government, McKenzie’s influence remained deep to an extent a Nigerian political commentator, Prof Zeeky Rukari, in a paper entitled “Who rules Kenya?” described him as “the leader of the invisible government.”
FRIENDLY LIAISONS
Did the Kenyan authorities know McKenzie to be an agent of foreign spy agents and at what point? Also were his secret liaisons harmful to the country’s best interests?
When I first put the question to Geoffrey Kareithi, a long-serving Head of Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet in Mzee Kenyatta’s government, in the 1990s, he categorically denied McKenzie was a spy and dismissed it as a conspiracy theory by international media and espionage writers.
At the time Kareithi was an assistant minister in President Daniel Moi’s administration, perhaps tied by the usual bureaucratic stone-walling and tendency to deny even the plain obvious.
Much later when I met a retired and aged Kareithi, he readily admitted that the Kenya government was aware of McKenzie’s “clandestine connections” but didn’t mind because they were not harmful to Kenya’s interests.
He told me that except for the apartheid South Africa, Britain and Israel had, then as now, deep intelligence partnership with Kenya on matters of mutual interest like counter-terrorism and in blocking communist influence, a major preoccupation of Western spy agents in the cold war era.
FREQUENT VISITORS
He disclosed that Kenyan authorities knew one of McKenzie’s frequent visitors in Nairobi to have been then head of the British intelligence unit MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield.
The latter would sneak in and out of Kenya “black”, which is the intelligence term to mean without going through mandatory checks at the airport.
Kareithi, too, revealed that when McKenzie died, Kenyan authorities secretly facilitated travel to Israel by his widow for a function to honour her late husband organised by the Mossad, an indication of how valuable the Kenyan was to the spy agency.
In the book: British Intelligence and Covert Action, British first High Commissioner to independent Kenya, Sir Malcolm McDonald, is quoted as saying McKenzie was recruited by the MI6, just before or immediately after Kenya’s independence.
He says McKenzie was brought on board by one David Stirling, a fellow officer in the British military during the World War and who had since been engaged by the MI6 to befriend leaders in the former British colonies.
MI6 OPERATIVE
McKenzie must have been a good catch given his friendship with President Kenyatta, and the fact that he sat in the Kenya cabinet and parliament.
Recruited with McKenzie was one George Young, another MI6 operative privy to machinations leading to Prime Minister Wilson’s fall from grace.
Kareithi told me MI6, in turn, could have introduced McKenzie to the Mossad in the spirit of what is called brotherhood of intelligence. The South Africans didn’t need any introduction as it was McKenzie’s country of origin.
In the period 1973/74, Britain was a country in turmoil, fuelled partly by the global oil crisis, and an unprecedented labour unrest at home. The miners had downed tools almost bringing the country’s industrial jugular to a standstill.
Never since the World War 2 had Britain got to such low that cynic commentators mocked that there was no longer anything “great” in Great Britain and nothing “united” in United Kingdom.
DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE
British domestic intelligence arm, the MI5, as well as the American CIA highly suspected the Russian intelligence, the KGB, to be the secret hand behind the labour unrest in Britain, working in cahoots with the opposition British Labour Party which tacitly supported the miners’ strike.
Rumours were awash in London that the leader of the Labour Party Harold Wilson, then campaigning to oust Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, and up to 50 Labour MPs secretly worked with the Russians to sabotage the Conservative government.
Subsequently, the British intelligence, egged on by the CIA, were determined that the Labour Party mustn’t win the Prime Minister elections scheduled for February 1974.
Enemy at Number 10: Enter McKenzie.
Suddenly whispers spread that having Labour leader Harold Wilson elected Prime Minister would be tantamount to having the enemy take over at Number 10 Downing Street, the London address of the prime minister’s office.
COMMUNIST PENETRATION
There was also talk of “the Reds under the beds”, a scare line to exaggerate the extent of the communist penetration in Her Majesty’s country.
Leading espionage writer, Chapman Pincher, would later reveal that Labour candidate Wilson and other top officials in his party were on active surveillance of the MI5 and the American CIA. Part of the strategy was to gather as much dirt on individual candidates in the Labour Party and pass it to the rivals in the Conservative Party.
According to Pincher, as soon as the secret dossier was ready, it was passed to chairman of the ruling Conservative party, Lord Carrington, for onward transmission to Prime Minister Edward Heath. But the latter, discloses author Pincher, wasn’t interested arguing that he was sure to defeat the Labour candidate and didn’t want to have been seen to have used dirty tricks to do so.
But with the intelligence community determined not to leave any chance, a new channel had to be found to have the Prime Minister change his mind.
DIRTY TRICKS
McKenzie came in handy. He happened to be friend of one Lord Aldington who, in turn, was a friend of the Prime Minister. Lord Aldington, who was chairman of a merchant bank in London, happened to have served in the military with McKenzie.
In later life, he would come in handy to do a favour or two for McKenzie’s clients in the world of espionage. According to Pincher, the Prime Minister remained adamant not to use the anti-Labour dossier supplied by the MI5 insisting he was sure to win without resorting to dirty tricks. But he lost the election to give McKenzie and his friends a chance to say: “See now what has happened after you refused to listen to us!”
With Harold Wilson, the “enemy” now sitting at the No 10 Downing Street, efforts to sabotage and bring him down went a notch higher.
An opportunity for a showdown and which roped in McKenzie didn’t take long in coming.
CIVILIAN REGIME
Early in his administration, a military dictator, Augusto Pinochet, with the help of the CIA, overthrew the civilian regime in the South American republic of Chile. It was an ironic madness of the Cold War era that Americans would rather have a ruthless dictator in power and not a fairly democratic civilian administration sympathetic to communism.
A radical wing in the British Labour party came out in the open to oppose the new military junta in Chile and urged Prime Minister Wilson to impose a trade embargo.
Alarmed that Wilson might be pressured to act, the CIA and the MI5 prevailed on him to not only decline the wishes of the radical wing in his party, but push it to the periphery where it wouldn’t have influence on his administration.
To put pressure on the Prime Minister, British intelligence embarked on a media smear campaign against the radicals in Labour party.
According to author Pincher, it’s to McKenzie and his old friend, George Young, to whom MI6 director, Sir Maurice Oldfield, turned to spearhead the smear media campaign on radicals in Wilson party.
ABRUPT RESIGNATION
Eventually, the Intelligence turned its guns on the person of the Prime Minister Wilson. According to writer Pincher, a few months to the Prime Minister’s abrupt resignation, McKenzie had tipped him that the Prime Minister had established beyond doubt that British Intelligence had secretly bugged his office and the cabinet room. McKenzie, in turn, had been told as much by none other than his friend and frequent visitor in Nairobi, MI6 director Sir Maurice Oldfield.
In the book “Web of Deception” Pincher describes McKenzie as “an extra-ordinarily well informed Kenyan politician and close friend of Sir Maurice Oldfield.” Pincher lived in a London neighbourhood where McKenzie owned a flat.
Last word: Under pressure from the House of Commons and the British media, Wilson’s successor as Prime Minister, James Callaghan, ordered an inquiry into allegations of secret bugging and eavesdropping on his predecessor.
STRANGE DEVICE
The report of the inquiry headed by his cabinet secretary Sir John Hunt was never made public. However, a leak in the British media would have it that the inquiry established that a “strange” device had been retrieved from the cabinet room.
According to the 30-year rule on release of records at the British Public Records Office, the report of the inquiry was due for release in August 2008.
But a quick check online indicates no such report has ever been released. If and when it is available, it perhaps shall finally shed light on the issue of “enemy at No 10”, and probably include a sentence or two about “our own” Bruce McKenzie.
Source: Daily Nation
hehe, story of giants kwa den ya changaa
these days they are stealing so much money in one heist hakuna haja kwa mchoro ingine coz they are investing wisely, wezi wa 70s na 80s kazi ilikua ni kukunywa tu na mapokoste, in two months jamaa yuko broke so lazima wachore tena
dynamo, had to put one on my son’s bike when he was 5 "kumuonyesha magic"he still has it ,alifanyia ukarabati lately kucharge phone sa zile tokens zimeanza choir
caption this
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Name these legends
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Buda, I grew up in the village where these were common. Also, Dynamo kila mtu alisomea kwa physics
This takes me way back.
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on the old lunatic express majamaa walikua wabeba hizi vinanda wakienda ocha, wataka kulala na jamaa ameweka volume full blast.
it was all true,when it came to shaw a.k.a romeo 9.Back in 85 he came(yes i was there) at my grandma’s place looking for ‘a man with a green motorbike’ ,we knew straight up it was my uncle. He left a message that he should pay him a visit ama in three days his diet will change.My uncle mbio mbio hadi central,that time he was 21,he checked himself in for the night ,then shaw shows up the next day.No interrogation and he is let go,apparently he was mistakenly identitified as a coincidentally similar description of another man,complete with a green bike but no location,but since aango alikua mtu wa watu,it was easy to point him out.Sijui outcome ya hio story but for like two months my uncle had to go to central in his own accord ’ to say hi’ wazee wajue ni law abiding lest someone decided to park a 9mm in his brain pan:D:D:D:D
