Coast Guard officers intercept bhang worth Ksh 0.5m destined for Lamu

Coast Guard officers Wednesday morning intercepted two consignments of bhang after a dramatic chase in the Indian Ocean.

The consignment worth over half a million shillings destined for the Lamu archipelago, was seized by the officers who were patrolling the sea at 4am.

In an early morning chase, reminiscent of an offshore powerboat racing competition, officers who were on routine patrol at Tustiri area, approximately 140 nautical miles from Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa, noticed a suspicious boat sailing towards Lamu, from Matondoni.

The captain signaled the boat to stop but on sighting the officers, the boat’s coxswain defied the orders and accelerated towards Tustiri channel.

When the officers caught up with the two thugs, they navigated their vessel to a mangrove thicket, jumped to the shrub-land and disappeared to different directions.

The officers impounded the boat before discovering the consignment of cannabis sativa, carefully concealed in khaki bags.

And as they were towing the boat to Lamu police station, they found one of the suspects attempting to cross the channel and arrested him.

Exhausted and without the energy to run from the long arm of the law, the suspect Feiswal Hamadi, 35, surrendered to the officers.

He is currently being processed at Lamu police station for arraignment.