Stolen IGP car among 5 vehicles recovered in Kenya
Police and residents gather at Busia Police Station where a Toyota Wish car which was recovered from Kenya was parked. Police in Busia District say they have recovered at least five stolen vehicles over the past few weeks. PHOTO/DAVID AWORI
What you need to know:
- Police say they were able to find the car due to good ties with Kenyan forces.
Police in Busia District have recovered five vehicles believed to have been stolen from Uganda’s capital Kampala, through a crackdown aimed at curbing car thefts as an emerging cross-border crime.
A brand-new double cabin pickup truck belonging to the Ugandan Inspector General of Police (IGP) has been recovered after it was reportedly stolen from the Kampala suburb of Kireka.
With the help of their Kenya counterparts and Geographical Positioning Systems (GPS) tracking devices, the car was recovered at one of the houses along Mumias Road in Busia Municipality, (Kenya side), according to Bukedi South Region Police Publicist Moses Mugwe.
“The interceptions we have made in the past few months indicate that the Eastern border is a no-go area for criminals who steal vehicles from Kampala and want to use the porous borders to take them to Kenya,” Mugwe added on Sunday.
Mugwe cited the good working relationship they have established with the Kenya government as being crucial to the recovery of the vehicle and the fight against cross border crime.
“We share information on various cross-border crimes and that is why we are able to recover some of these stolen cars,” he further explained.
Other recovered cars
On September 12, detectives in Busia District recovered a Toyota Wish registration number UBP 856Q, which was reportedly stolen at gunpoint in Bombo by six men armed with two AK47 assault rifles.
Michael Paul Marko, the driver of the car, said it was taken from him on the evening of September 10 by six men wearing military fatigue.
“The criminals, who were six in number, had two guns, put me at gunpoint, took the car and held me hostage for hours before later dumping me in Bulenga and driving off,” Marko said.
He added that he had filed a case of aggravated robbery at Bulenga Police Station on September 11.
Multiple CCTV footage reviewed by police shows that from Kampala, the car was driven to Jinja City but left for Busia border under mysterious circumstances.
However, using GPS and installed car tracking devices, it was on September 11 located along a porous border in Mawero Village, Busia District, and shortly after, in Alupe Village in Busia County, Kenya.
Thereafter, officers from International Police (Interpol) alerted Kenya authorities and a day-long joint tracking syndicate of the car started, which revealed through GPS tracking on September 12 that the car had traveled for 60 kilometers from Busia border and was in Siaya County in Western Kenya.
Uganda Police alerted their Kenya counterparts and moved to Siaya where they recovered the abandoned car. None of the criminals had been arrested.
Sources, however, said the car had been fitted with three tracking devices, but the assailants had managed to disconnect two of and failed to locate the third which made the pursuing security team not to lose track of the stolen vehicle.
In another incident, police recovered a Sino truck registration number UBJ 249L belonging to Wagagai Gold Mining Company, which was reportedly stolen from their premises by a masked man using forged company identity cards.
It was driven through the porous border into Kenya, before being tracked by Uganda and Kenya Police and recovered in Esirisia Village, Matayos Sub-county in Busia-Kenya County.
At the time of its recovery, police officers established that the assailants, who appeared to have been working with cartels in Kenya, had removed its official Ugandan number plate and replaced it with a Kenyan licence plate number KCC8 54Q.
On July 26, 2024, police recorded another major success against the carjackers, when they intercepted and recovered a Hino truck registration number UBK 277D, which was reportedly stolen from Kawanda in Kampala.
The truck, which was yellow in colour, was captured on CCTV cameras along the Bugiri-Malaba Highway as it approached Busia town.
Its occupants, in fear of being arrested, avoided the Busia town route and instead drove through Busitema, Kayoro and Amungura trading center in Buteba Sub-county, where they abandoned it and fled after realising that Police were in hot pursuit.
Investigators say sometimes delays by the car owners to make timely reports of the theft was a challenge in tracking and recovering their vehicles.
