The United Kingdom has committed to share intelligence reports with Kenya to help bring to an end the smuggling of high-end vehicles stolen from abroad into Kenya.
The Kenya Revenue Authority, through the British High Commission office in Kenya, has been able to nab about nine high-end vehicles that had been stolen in the UK.
The vehicles, which were being sneaked into Uganda through the port of Mombasa, had been declared as other low-value vehicle models and in some cases disguised as used household goods.
Today.the British High Commissioner to Kenya, Nic Hailey, witnessed the inspection and verification of the containers that had been intercepted at the port of Mombasa with the stolen vehicles.
“We will work together with our colleagues in Kenya, sharing information and intelligence to track down smuggled vehicles. They will also provide us with valuable information in tracking down these organized criminal gangs,” said Hailey.
The vehicles, which include six (6) Range Rover Sports, a Land Rover Discovery, a BMW X5, and a Mercedes Benz GLE350d, are valued at over Sh200 million.
They will now be shipped back to UK to their rightful owners.
Speaking at the port of Mombasa, Hailey said KRA has done a good work to trace these vehicles and ensuing that they are retuned back to rightful owners in the UK.
“We know that organized crime works across continents and, as we have seen here that these cars, very high-end vehicles worth several hundreds of dollars that were stolen from UK by criminal gangs were smuggled into Kenya destined for Uganda and maybe sold to other regions,” said Hailey.
Nichola Kinoti, the KRA Regional Coordinator for Southern Region, said the last two containers that were seized at the port of Mombasa, were trailed for two months.
He said they have now launched investigation to arrest those behind the importation of the stolen vehicles.
“The importers have gone under, but we are working with the British government and our security agencies to ensure we arrest those behind this syndicate,” said Kinoti.
He said two of the seized vehicles had their chassis numbers cloned to conceal their stolen status.
“The seizure at the port are as a result of close collaboration between KRA and its local and international law enforcement partners. Particularly, KRA has worked closely with the British High Commission in Kenya, through information and intelligence exchange, to disrupt the stolen vehicle smuggling syndicate,” said Kinoti.
“As a major step, we are working to repatriate the seized vehicles to the origin country for the law enforcement purposes and for the eventual return to the rightful owners,” he said.