Drug trafficking, fraud and immigration misconduct are some of the crimes that have landed Kenyans in prisons in the United States.
The recent discovery of the arrest and imprisonment of former presidential candidate Mohamed Abduba Dida adds to the list of Kenyan citizens serving time in prisons in the US.
The former teacher who vied for presidency in 2013 and 2017 is currently held at the Big Muddy Correctional Center in Illinois after being found guilty of stalking and intimidating an unidentified individual.
He was jailed in 2021 for seven years and has been held in three correctional facilities so far.
Another set of notable Kenyans detained in the US are the Akasha brothers who were found guilty of drug trafficking and conspiring to use and carry machine guns and destructive devices in connection with their drug-trafficking crimes, as well as obstructing justice by paying bribes to Kenyan officials in an effort to avoid extradition to the US.
Baktash Akasha was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2019 while Ibrahim Akasha was handed 23 years in 2020.
The Akasha brothers were arrested in Mombasa in November 2014 in a US led operation that had Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informants posing as drug traffickers.
The brothers provided them with 99 kilograms of heroin and two kilograms of methamphetamine which led to their arrest.
They were extradited to the US in 2017 and taken to the Southern District of New York for prosecution.
Both Akasha brothers pleaded guilty in October 2018 and as result of getting into plea deals, their sentences cannot be appealed.
The longest sentence though is perhaps that of Brian Musomba Maweu in 2015 who was sentenced to life imprisonment for child pornography.
Before he was extradited to the US in 2014, he posted 121 messages on the Dreamboard website–a private, members-only online bulletin board that promoted paedophilia and encouraged the sexual abuse and exploitation of very young children– including 34 posts containing child pornography that he produced.
According to court documents, he was a “Super VIP” member of the platform, meaning he produced his own child pornography.
Kevin Kang’ethe who made headlines after escaping from a police station is also now held in prison in the US after he was extradited two weeks ago.
He is in trial for the heinous murder of his girlfriend Margaret Mbitu last year. He fled the US to Kenya after committing the crime but authorities were able to track him and arrest him.
While in custody at the Muthaiga police station, he escaped in unclear circumstances and was re-arrested and flown back to the US in an FBI private jet to answer to the murder charges.
On September 3, he pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to return to court on November 5 for a pre-trial hearing. He is being held without bail.
Fraud including love scams and investment fraud are some of the crimes that have led some Kenyans in prison in recent times.
Paul Maucha, 59, was found guilty in February of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and defrauding people by tricking them into paying money to a company under the pretence that they would later receive favourable financial opportunities.
According to court documents, Mr Maucha through his shell company, American Eagle Services Group (AESG) promised victims who were seeking loans that his company could provide them with these loans on the condition they paid an advance fee.
He reassured them that the fee was refundable if his company did not give them the loans they wanted.
But evidence submitted in court showed that Mr Maucha who had moved to the US for 36 years was splitting the fees with his co-conspirator and spending them. The company therefore did not have any money to refund.
In June, he was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison and in addition to serve three years of supervised release; to pay a $200,000 fine, a $400 special assessment, and restitution and forfeiture both in the amount of $1,901,252.
Florence Mwende Musau was last year jailed for participating in a conspiracy involving romance scams designed to deceive victims into sending money to bank accounts controlled by her and others.
She was found guilty of using fake passports in the names of numerous aliases to open bank accounts where she would receive the money from the love scams.
She was revealed to be acting on the instructions of her Nigerian boyfriend, Mark Arome Okuo who would lie to the victims he met on dating sites that he was a US Army soldier serving in the Middle East or Africa.
As their relationships grew deeper, he would request the women to wire him money to facilitate him to leave the military and return to the US to marry them.
Ms Musau and Mr Okuo managed to scam the victims of more than $1 million. She was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison and two years and six months of supervised release. Ms Musau was also ordered to pay approximately $957,000 in restitution and to forfeit approximately $350,000 and a Lexus SUV.
In May 2023, a court sentenced Abdi Hussein Ahmed to four years followed by three years’ supervised release, for conspiring to traffic large quantities of rhinoceros horn and elephant ivory worth millions of dollars. He was also found guilty of conspiring to distribute heroin.
Ahmed alongside four others poached approximately 35 rhinoceros and more than 100 elephants between 2012 and 2019 hoping to sell the horns and ivory which were valued at close to $8 million.
In January, Erick Gachuhi Wanjiku, 42, was sentenced to three years in federal prison and three years of supervised release for assaulting federal officers.
According to evidence presented at trial, on May 8, 2023, Mr Gachuhi was moved from an Oklahoma Correctional Facility to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Removal Operations facility in Oklahoma City to be processed for immigration proceedings.
Before he could be fingerprinted, Wanjiku kicked one deportation officer near his left knee and bit a second deportation officer before he was restrained and placed back in a cell. Court documents describe the bite marks as “clearly visible and bloody.”
In 2018, data by America’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detainees showed that 67 Kenyans were detained in the country over immigration and customs misconduct.
In 2015, former president Uhuru Kenyatta signed into law the Transfer of Prisoners Act aimed at facilitating arrangements for the transfer of persons serving sentences of imprisonment for criminal offences committed in Kenya or countries outside Kenya. It is unclear whether any prisoners have been transferred to Kenya under the Act.
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