Police in Nairobi have arrested three individuals suspected of being part of a motorcycle theft syndicate.
According to police, the three are part of a gang suspected to have stolen over 4,000 motorcycles which they sell in the neighboring country of Ethiopia.
The three were nabbed at a home in Joska, Machakos county where police recovered a stolen motorbike that had been dismantled and ready for sale.
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By the time of arrest, the tracking device on the motorcycle had already been removed by the suspected thieves who did not know that the motorbike had additional tracking devices.
Police swung into action after complaints from Boda Boda operators and creditors who had fallen victim to a scheme where robbers engage unemployed youths to get a motorbike on credit and deliver to them with the promise that their records will be deleted from the creditors.
Police say the unemployed youths are in return furnished with a Ksh10,000 cash reward.
Once the motorbikes are delivered, the robbers disable the tracking devices and ferry them to Ethiopia where they are sold.
Other stolen motorbikes whose owners have either been killed or injured during the theft have also been traced to Moyale.
“We have lost six motorbikes in Nairobi. One was stolen in Gachie and when we traced it, the last coordinate that appeared was in Eastleigh,” Thomas Lesaatin, the chair of Umbrella Boda Boda association said.
According to the Umbrella Boda Boda Association, over 400 motorbikes have been stolen this year amounting to a loss of over Ksh60 million.
In September, police intercepted two lorries in Nanyuki which were transporting stolen motorbikes, complete with forged logbooks to the border town of Moyale.
