Will US-DEA agents target Joho brothers after sentencing of Akasha brothers? -

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Anxiety continues to rise in Mombasa County ahead of the sentencing of the Akasha brothers at a court in New York, USA.

The much feared Akasha brothers are scheduled to be sentenced by presiding Judge Victor Marrero on March 15, 2019.

Ahead of the sentencing, there has been palpable tension building up within the circles of the wealthy Mombasa Governor Ali Hassan Joho and his brother Abubakar Joho who have long been suspect of engaging in the drug trade.

During the period leading to the confessions by the Akashas to US authorities, it was noted Governor Joho made a visit to the US and was accompanied by his Kenyan legal counsel. In that trip, Joho was interviewed by several federal agents.

And in the recent past, even as the two Joho brothers enjoy improved relations with President Uhuru Kenyatta and the government system, they have at the same time embarked on precautionary moves.

The Joho’s have separately liquidated assets, transferred property to close aides and held endless meetings with lawyers in what has been interpreted as a bid to prepare themselves for any eventuality.

Although no clear relations are known to exist between the Akashas and the Johos, a clear link emerges in their friendship Mombasa wealthy tycoon and suspected drug baron Ali Punjani. The Joho’s have particularly taken Punjani’s right hand man Aharub Ibrahim Khatri, installed him as Speaker of Mombasa County Assembly and is in line to succeed Hassan Ali Joho as governor of Mombasa in 2022.

The Akasha sentencing is expected to open a pandora’s box which is expected to incriminate not only their trafficking associates, but also high ranking Kenyan judiciary officials and senior law enforcement officers, all of whom were uncovered in Akasha’s explosive plea bargain as having received millions of dollars in bribes from the Akasha organisation crime family to abet their drug trafficking business and frustrate their extradition to the United States to face drug charges.

These individuals found culpable of assisting the Akashas remain firmly on the radar of DEA agents who have been conducting covert investigations in Kenya.

According to sources at the US Embassy in Nairobi, there certainly shall be additional indictment and prosecution of more Kenyans on American soil.

Top officials in Kenyan legal circles are also hoping that the Americans have cracked the drug dealers and that they will provide information on their associates in politics and government.

The US Chief Federal Prosecutor in New York, Geoffrey Berman, described Baktash and Ibrahim as the leader and deputy of a highly lucrative and extremely violent international drug distribution business.

Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha were arrested in Mombasa in 2014 alongside Gulam Hussein, a Pakistani national, and Vijaygiri Goswami, a citizen of India. The four were charged with drug-trafficking offenses as a result of a US Drug Enforcement Agency sting operation.

The four alleged leading members of the so-called Akasha Organisation were specifically accused of attempting to arrange the shipment of 99 kilogrammes of heroin into the United States.