Police in Moyale seized 500 kilograms of bhang and arrested one suspect in a stealth operation to curtail the trafficking of narcotics in the region.
The operation was launched after police received intelligence information that a lorry had been spotted at a thicket at Kate in Moyale while loaded with a suspicious consignment.
The area is popular with such narcotics originating from neighboring Ethiopia.
Swinging into action, the law enforcers rushed to the location where a trailer loaded with 99 bales of the illicit drug estimated at a street value of Sh10 million was intercepted and the cargo seized, police said.
The operation also saw the trailer driver – arrested, but not without a confrontation as two suspected accomplices emerged riding on a motorcycle while firing frenziedly at the officers.
In self-defense, the officers retaliated forcing the assailants to flee.
In the melee, the suspect sustained a gunshot wound in his abdomen and was rushed to Moyale Hospital for treatment.
As he recuperates ahead of his arraignment for contravening anti-narcotic laws, the recoveries have been processed and secured as exhibits.
Some of the bhang consumed in most parts of the country originates in Ethiopia, police investigations show.
Several arrests and seizures have been made in 2021 in a trend that has worried officials.
Officials say the traffickers also use oil tankers to haul their consignments into the country
Most of the narcotics originate from Ethiopia where they are packaged for the market in Nairobi and other major towns.
Police say the traffickers use the porous Kenya-Ethiopia border to get their illegal consignment into the country.
The border town of Moyale in northern Kenya is an entry point for large hauls of bhang widely grown in southern Ethiopia.
Once the bhang leaves Shashamane, it heads down south to the border points of Moyale, Sololo, Corolla, Uran, and Dukana. Others use Mandera, Wajir, Garissa route.
The other route runs from Funannyata in Sololo, Marsabit county, to the Yamicha plains of Merti sub-county in Isiolo.
They take the consignments to Eastleigh, Majengo, and Mlango Kubwa for repackaging and distribution.
In March 2020, detectives arrested a man with 56 bales of bhang, packaged like second-hand clothes.
The consignment weighed 466 kilograms.
