Months after
his wife and partner in crime met her death in the hands of the police, notorious
thug Mwaniki aka Mwanii Sparta has been gunned down.
Mwanii, one
of the most wanted criminals in Nairobi, was killed by police last weekend at
Witeithie Estate in Juja.
Mwanii’s
wife, Claire Mwaniki, who was christened “Nairobi’s prettiest thug” was shot
dead last May in Kayole after a shootout with the police. They had a son
together. See the report: here
According to
senior officers in Kayole, Mwaniki was callous while executing his evil
schemes. Until his death, he was the leader of Gaza, a ruthless criminal gang
whose ideology is cult-like and draws inspiration from a jailed Jamaican artist
Vybz Kartel, who is serving a life sentence for killing his associate, the
police said.
Besides
being ruthless, Mwaniki is said to have been crafty and would be quick to
eliminate a competitor or anyone he suspected was spying for the authorities.
"Mwaniki
at one point killed two colleagues for befriending his wife Claire, who has
since been killed,” a senior officer who did not want to be named told the Capital
FM News investigative team.
Mwaniki, who
was with four other people at the time of the ambush, was shot dead after
engaging police in a two-hour gun battle. The rest of the gangsters managed to
get away.
Police
reinforcements were called in from Nairobi and Kiambu counties to end the
deadly shoot-out. Realizing that they had been outnumbered, the gang tried to
escape.
Nairobi
County Police Commander Japheth Koome has confirmed that the slain suspect is
indeed Mwaniki.
Mwanii had
managed to elude many police traps, his elusiveness being attributed to his
access to insider information regarding impending arrests and is suspected to
be behind many police deaths, most of whom he fell out with.
On how
police established the whereabouts of Mwaniki, one of the detectives said they
infiltrated the Gaza gang, which has about six surviving members on the run
while the rest have died while confronting the police.
“It was not
an easy task to get him. He has foot soldiers who would always alert him every
time we would plan a raid,” the detective said.
Of his
informers, he admitted some are police officers who benefitted from his
proceeds of crime.
Early on
Sunday, Mwaniki had called their supplier (a police informer ) of ammunition,
asking for a delivery later in the afternoon.
“As soon as
our informer alerted us about his hideout and that they were to meet that
afternoon, we prepared a team and we had hoped that he will be arrested
together with the rest of the criminals. But we went there cautiously since
they were armed,” the detective revealed.
At around
2pm on Sunday, the informer accompanied by a team of armed police officers in
plain clothes arrived at Mwaniki’s hideout in Thika where they met ‘face to
face’.
"Mwaniki
and one of his accomplices had gone to one of the residences to “smoke weed.
They did not know who we were.”
But as
shrewd as he was, Mwaniki smelt a rat; there were suspicious faces in his
‘kingdom.’
It is at
that time, the detective narrated, that he removed his Ceska pistol and started
firing at them.
“A fierce
shootout ensued and in the process both were killed…the Gaza leader was dead,”
he said.
The Ceska
pistol serial number was A879675, belonging to the army. Police officers also
recovered 21 rounds of ammunition. They might have stolen from an army
officer…” the officer explained.
But in the
house, there were six others gang members who were also armed with an AK-47,
which they stole from two police officers they had killed two days before
within the same area.
The six
managed to escape and days later, police are still pursuing them.
“We have
profiled them…we know their names and a little bit of their history,” he said.
Hours later
after the raid and the killing of Mwaniki and his accomplice, the person police
were relying on for intelligence, was also killed.
“He made a
huge mistake…he went back to them without informing us at an unknown location
but still within Thika. They brutally killed him,” the officer said.
The said
informer had served a jail sentence before he was released. According to
police, his colleagues tortured him before strangling him to death.
“Though he
was not seen during the raid, they must have known that he was the one who
spied on them."
Mwaniki
hails from Kirinyaga County but was raised in Kayole, B3 area.
He went to
Imara Primary School and later proceeded to Joy Valley Secondary School in the
same area.
Police
records show that he started as a petty thief engaging in muggings and
snatching handbags before he graduated to bigger’ crimes.
His first
assignment was to protect a tycoon’s land in Kayole together with another gang
of 10.
Source:
Capital FM
0 Comments