US embassy cable - 05NAIROBI5094

UNCLAS NAIROBI 005094 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
JUSTICE FOR OIA, AFMLS, AND NDDS; TREASURY FOR FINCEN; DEA 
FOR OILS AND OFFICE OF DIVERSION CONTROL; DEA/PRETORIA FOR 
WAGNER; DEPT. FOR AF/EX FOR PRATT AND INL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SNAR, KCRM, PTER, KTFN, EFIN, KE 
SUBJECT: KENYA: 2005 INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL 
STRATEGY REPORT 
 
REF: SECSTATE 209558 
 
I.  Summary 
 
Kenya is a transit country for heroin and hashish, mostly 
from Southwest Asia bound for Europe and North America. 
Heroin transiting Kenya has markedly increased in quality in 
recent years and is destined increasingly for North America, 
even as the overall transit volume continued to decline. 
Although the exact impact of this heroin on the U.S. market 
is unclear, it is not believed to be significant.  It is 
believed that Kenya is becoming a transit country for cocaine 
from South America bound for Europe.  Cannabis/marijuana is 
grown domestically and imported from neighboring countries 
for the illegal domestic market.  There is a small but 
growing domestic heroin market. 
 
Air passenger profiling, airport controls, and other 
techniques have helped reduce airborne heroin shipments. 
Interdiction of narcotics shipments by sea has been 
unsuccessful as Kenya police lack the necessary 
infrastructure, funding, or staffing for such an endeavor.  A 
program for profiling shipping containers is in effect, but 
has had little success due to rampant corruption among 
customs officials, police, and members of the judiciary.  The 
three year-old &national drug control master plan8 has not 
moved forward since the cabinet turned the project over to an 
inter-agency committee led by the solicitor-general. 
Although government officials profess strong support for 
anti-narcotics efforts, the overall program suffers from a 
lack of resources and susceptibility to corruption, and 
financial deficits hinder its intelligence collection 
capabilities.   Kenya is a party to the 1988 UN Drug 
Convention and has enacted full implementing legislation. 
End summary. 
 
II.  Status of Country 
 
Kenya is a significant transit country and a minor producer 
of narcotics.  Heroin and hashish transiting Kenya, believed 
to have a relatively small impact on the United States, 
continued to see a decline from its 2001 peak.  Kenya remains 
a transit country for small quantities of cocaine and other 
drugs destined for Southern African and Western European 
consumers.  In general, these drugs originate from outside of 
Africa.  It is believed that Kenya is becoming a transit 
country for cocaine from South America bound for Europe. 
Cannabis or marijuana is produced in commercial quantities 
for the domestic market.  There is no evidence of its impact 
on the United States. 
 
Kenya's sea and air transportation infrastructure, and the 
network of commercial and family ties that link some Kenyans 
to Southwest Asia, make Kenya a significant transit country 
for Southwest Asian heroin.  In 2000, officials noted a 
dramatic shift from low-purity brown heroin to higher-purity 
white heroin, and believe that the higher-purity product is 
destined principally for the United States.  This trend 
continued in 2005.  Although it is impossible to quantify 
exactly, officials now believe that the United States is at 
least as significant as Europe as a destination for heroin 
transiting Kenya.  In recent years, Kenya has been an 
important transit point for Southwest Asian cannabis resin 
(hashish), and police made several multi-ton hashish 
seizures.  However, hashish seizures have fallen off 
dramatically since 2000 and the 2005 figures remain 
relatively constant with figures for 2004.  Cocaine seizures 
have decreased significantly from the spike in 2004. 
 
Kenya does not produce significant quantities of precursor 
chemicals. 
 
III.  Country Actions Against Drugs 
 
Policy Initiatives: 
The 2001 &national drug control national plan8 continues to 
languish within an inter-agency committee chaired by the 
nation,s solicitor-general.  Counter-narcotics agencies, 
notably the Anti-Narcotic Unit (ANU) within the Kenyan Police 
Service continues to depend on the 1994 Narcotics Act for 
enforcement measures and interdiction guidelines.  Most 
believe that the eleven year-old Act is sufficient to sustain 
current interdiction efforts, but note the Act,s major area 
of weakness remains its capacity to combat money laundering. 
The &national drug control master plan8 should it be 
implemented, would provide for a senior civil servant donor 
liaison who would co-ordinate a broad anti-narcotics effort, 
to include a much-expanded public campaign aimed at 
preventing drug use.  Additionally, the plan summarizes 
 
policies, defines priorities, and apportions responsibilities 
for drug control to various agencies.  In 2005, the 
government of Kenya worked with the United Nations Office for 
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to develop new regulations on the 
seizure, analysis, and disposal of narcotic drugs and 
psychotropic  substances, which have yet to be implemented. 
 
 
The National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NCADA) continues to 
pursue its mandate, although the quasi-governmental 
organization's budget remains negligible.  Kenyan authorities 
improved internal information sharing and operational 
coordination between various government agencies, airlines, 
and other entities over the course of 2005 to complement 
regional cooperation efforts bolstered by the 2001 East 
African Community protocol on combating drug trafficking.  In 
2001, Kenyan police officers observed cannabis eradication 
operations in Uganda and participated in an exchange program 
on airport counter-narcotics operations with their Tanzanian 
and Ugandan counterparts.  Bi-annual meetings between CID 
national directors have further strengthened lessons learned 
in training and exchange programs.  ANU officers and the 
NCADA have continued outreach programs to judges and 
magistrates, conducting seminars on anti-narcotics law and 
the seriousness of narcotics issues.  ANU continued to 
publicize its anti-drug message effectively through local 
media and increased public awareness in cooperation with 
NCADA through lectures aimed at a range of students from 
primary schools through universities and members of local 
civic groups. 
 
The ANU of the Kenyan police continues to cooperate well with 
international and regional anti-narcotics officials.  In 
August, Kenya hosted the East Africa Police Chief Cooperation 
Organization general meeting.  This working group, composed 
of ANU and Criminal Investigations Division (CID) 
representatives from 10 East African countries in active 
cooperation with Interpol, shares narcotics-related 
intelligence, arrest data, and information on emerging trends 
in order to enhance cross-border counter-narcotics efforts. 
 
Kenya has no crop substitution or alternative development 
initiatives for progressive elimination of the cultivation of 
narcotics.  The ANU remains the focus of Kenyan 
anti-narcotics efforts. 
 
Accomplishments: 
The ANU has sustained a successful track record in sentencing 
since beginning its program of judicial outreach in 2002.  In 
November, a Nigerian national was arrested at Jomo Kenyatta 
International Airport and subsequently found to be smuggling 
5.2 kilograms of cocaine.  She was fined USD 1,068,500 and 
sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.  In 2004, another 
Nigerian national was arrested at JKIA and found to be 
smuggling 39 pellets of heroin.  He was sentenced to eight 
years imprisonment and charged $12,500 USD.  Kenyan law 
enforcement authorities destroyed 153,720 cannabis plants, a 
nearly 14 fold increase over the previous year. 
 
Many ANU officers have undergone training, much of it through 
the UNODC and bilateral programs sponsored by the U.S., 
German, British, Japanese and other governments.  The ANU and 
the Kenyan Customs Service now have a cadre of officers 
proficient in profiling and searching suspected drug couriers 
and containers at airports and seaports.  Profiling has 
yielded good results, albeit generally for couriers and not 
major traffickers, and the success rate over the past few 
years has forced traffickers to seek viable land routes 
through Kenya rather than a sole dependence on JKIA.  Seaport 
profiling has proven difficult.  Despite the official 
estimate that eighty percent of the narcotics trafficking 
through Kenya originates on international sea vessels, 
personnel turnover at the ports is high and corruption 
rampant. Resource and staffing inadequacies undercut the 
sustainability of most training programs, undermining their 
effectiveness and impact.  A high degree of corruption 
continues to thwart the success of long-term port security 
training.  The ANU has trained officers in maritime narcotics 
interdiction, however, the ANU does not possess any boats 
with which to conduct such programming.  The ANU has built 
its surveillance capabilities and has capitalized on the 
information yielded from increasingly sophisticated 
operations.  Inadequate resources, a problem throughout the 
Kenyan police force, significantly reduces the ANU's 
operational effectiveness. 
 
The ANU cooperates with the United States and other nations 
on anti-narcotics investigations and other operations.  The 
ANU continues to pass information to Interpol and the U.S. 
 
Drug Enforcement Agency based in Pretoria.  The NCADA 
continues to pursue demand reduction efforts via national 
public education programs on drug abuse. 
 
The Kenyan government (through customs and the criminal 
investigations department of the Kenyan police service) is 
collaborating with UNODC in setting up a drug law enforcement 
program targeting key entry points of drugs into the East 
African region.  This program compliments another UNODC 
program focusing on developing drug control capacity in the 
port of Mombasa. 
 
Law Enforcement: 
Kenya seized 30 kilograms of heroin in 2005, nearly a twenty 
percent decrease from the quantities seized in 2004 (all 
statistics on drug seizures in this section reflect the 
period from January to November 2005 as provided by the ANU) 
and arrested 103 people on heroin-related charges. Officials 
report a continued shift to higher-quality white heroin from 
lower-quality brown heroin, and report that traffickers have 
re-oriented much of the white heroin transiting Kenya for the 
United States in hopes of a larger profit yield.  Most 
couriers arrested in Kenya conceal heroin by swallowing, 
though some also hide it in their shoes, false-bottom 
briefcases, and car engine parts.  The ANU concentrates its 
anti-heroin operations at Kenya's two main international 
airports.  Kenyan authorities seized 49,854 kilograms of 
cannabis and its derivatives in 2005 and arrested 4,648 
suspects.  Officials believe Kenyan coastal waters and ports 
are major transit points for the shipment of hashish from 
Pakistan to Europe and North America.  As in the previous 
year, the ANU saw an increase in cannabis cultivation during 
targeted raids in 2005, in which 153,720 plants were 
destroyed. 
 
Seizures of cocaine and arrests for cocaine trafficking 
continued to be low.  Kenya seized 5 kilograms of cocaine in 
2005 and made 4 arrests.  However, ANU intercepted the 
largest cocaine shipment ever seized in Kenya in December 
2004.  Police seized two cocaine shipments totaling 954 
kilos.  The ANU speculates the drugs were destined for the 
Netherlands.  Cocaine seized in Kenya is believed to 
originate from Brazil and Colombia; its abuse and local 
vailability is not widespread.  ANU officials investigating 
the December 2004 seizure believe it highlights the fact that 
traffickers are using Kenya as a "re-packing point" for drugs 
destined to Europe and elsewhere.  In this case, the drugs, 
upon arrival in Nairobi through smaller courier deliveries, 
are opened, re-packaged and wrapped in polythene papers 
before being shipped abroad.  One method transports the drugs 
by road to the Port of Mombasa.  Once the shipment has 
arrived in Mombasa, the drugs are initially shipped out to 
sea in small boats and then transferred to larger cargo 
vessels. 
 
The ANU continued to operate roadblocks for domestic drug 
trafficking interdiction and is pursuing a variety of policy 
initiatives for more effective coordination with other 
government agencies.  The ANU has launched an outreach effort 
to persuade judges and magistrates of the seriousness of 
anti-narcotics offenses and identify ways cases can be 
handled more effectively.  However, Kenya has yet to achieve 
a successful prosecution stemming from the December 2004 
cocaine seizures.  Defendants accused of trafficking 295 
kilograms of the 954 kg of cocaine seized were acquitted in 
November due to lack of evidence.  The magistrate presiding 
over the case stated that the case was not adequately 
investigated nor prosecuted and the state failed to comply 
with sections of the Narcotics Drugs Act.  Given the 
lackluster performance of legal and law enforcement 
authorities in the case, the magistrate questioned the 
commitment of the Attorney General to combating drug 
trafficking. 
 
Corruption: 
As a matter of government policy, Kenya does not encourage 
nor facilitate the illicit production or distribution of 
narcotic or psychotropic substances, or the laundering of 
proceeds from illegal drug transactions.  However, corruption 
remains a significant barrier to effective narcotics 
enforcement at both the prosecutorial and law enforcement 
level.  Police frequently complain that the courts are 
ineffective in handling anti-narcotics cases, which is likely 
a combination of corruption, misunderstanding of the law, and 
simple judicial backlog.  Despite Kenya's strict narcotics 
laws that encompass most forms of narcotics-related 
corruption, unconfirmed reports continue to be prevalent 
linking public officials with narcotics trafficking in the 
East African region.  As in previous years, airport and 
 
airline collusion and outright involvement with narcotics 
traffickers continued to occur in the year covered by this 
report.  Corruption by law enforcement and customs officials 
at seaports continues to hinder effective interdiction 
efforts of narcotics shipments. 
 
Agreements/Treaties: 
Kenya is a party to the 1988 UN Drug Convention, which it 
implemented in 1994 with the enactment of the Narcotic Drugs 
and Psychotropic Substances Control Act.  Kenya is also a 
party to the 1961 UN Single Convention and its 1972 Protocol. 
 Kenya's National Assembly ratified the 1971 UN Convention on 
Psychotropic Substances in 2000. The 1931 U.S.-U.K. 
Extradition Treaty remains in force between the United States 
and Kenya through a 1965 exchange of notes. 
 
Under a 1991 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), amended in 
1996, the U.S. donated surveillance and computer equipment to 
the ANU in 1997.  The MOU also provides for sharing of 
narcotics-related information.  In 2002, the United States 
secured an amendment to the MOU it signed with the Government 
of Kenya in 2000 to provide increased assistance to the ANU. 
This amendment allows the US to assist the ANU in improving 
its airport interdiction efforts, coastline patrols, and to 
combat corruption. 
 
Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda established a protocol to enhance 
regional anti-narcotics cooperation in 2001. 
 
Cultivation and Production: 
A significant number of Kenyan farmers illegally grow 
cannabis on a commercial basis for the domestic market. 
Fairly large-scale cannabis cultivation occurs in the Lake 
Victoria basin, in the central highlands around Mt. Kenya, 
and along the coast.  Foreign tourists export small amounts 
of Kenyan marijuana.  Officials continue to conduct aerial 
surveys to identify significant cannabis-producing areas in 
cooperation with the Kenya Wildlife Service.  Aerial surveys 
this year yielded large cannabis crops in several areas, of 
which 153,720 plants were destroyed.  INL did not provide 
funding for the application of aerial herbicides in 2005, and 
no aerial eradication efforts were undertaken. 
 
Drug Flow and Transit: 
Kenya is strategically located along a major transit route 
between Southwest Asian producers of heroin and markets in 
Europe and North America.  Heroin normally transits Kenya by 
air, carried by individual couriers, but as a result of 
profiling measures and enhanced counter-narcotics efforts, 
ANU officials believe traffickers are finding Jomo Kenyatta 
International Airport  (JKIA) an increasingly inconvenient 
exit point for East African drugs.  Increasingly, as most 
major commercial carriers exiting East Africa frequently stop 
in Nairobi before exiting the continent, traffickers prefer 
land-routes to JKIA rather than expose their product to two 
police check-points, one at the airport of origin and another 
at JKIA.  ANU officials continued to interrupt couriers 
transiting newly created land-routes from Uganda and 
Tanzania, where it is believed the drugs arrive via 
air-routes.  The increased use of land-routes demonstrates, 
in the minds of ANU officials, that traffickers have noted 
the increase in security and narcotics checks at JKIA.  South 
Asians and Africans remain active couriers, the majority of 
whom are women.  ANU continues to track an emerging trend of 
Western and Eastern European heroin couriers transiting Kenya 
to Europe and North America.  Once in Kenya, heroin is 
typically delivered to agents of West African, Kenyan, and 
Ugandan crime syndicates. 
 
The police continue to notice a shift in the quality of 
trafficked heroin from low-purity brown heroin to high-purity 
white.  Officials also say that the shift from brown to white 
heroin has been accompanied by a shift from the European to 
the North American market.  Officials attribute the 
increasing amount of white heroin to increased processing 
capabilities in Pakistan and Afghanistan and more 
sophisticated and intricate use of sea-routes.  There is 
evidence that sea-routes are increasingly used for the 
shipment of cocaine from South America to Kenya, and on to 
European markets.  There is also evidence that poor policing 
along the East African coast makes this region attractive to 
maritime smugglers.  Kenya's neighbor Somalia has a long 
coastline and no functioning government.  Despite the fact 
local, regional, and international anti-narcotics officials 
have increased attention paid to the maritime transport of 
narcotics, ANU interdiction capabilities remain nonexistent. 
Kenya has no functioning maritime interdiction resources. 
Six officers are assigned to the southern port of Mombasa for 
profiling purposes only and the two officers who have been 
 
trained in maritime interdiction have no watercraft from 
which to operate.  Postal and commercial courier services are 
also used for narcotics shipments through Kenya. 
 
In the past, Kenya has been a transit country for 
methaqualone (mandrax) en route from India to South Africa. 
While during the previous few years there had been no mandrax 
seizures in Kenya, the 2004 arrest of an individual in 
Nairobi carrying 5,000 tablets of mandrax raised concerns 
that a new, clandestine mandrax factory may have resumed 
operations in Kenya.  However, total mandrax seizures for 
2005 amounted to only 5 tablets. 
 
Officials have never identified any clandestine airstrips in 
Kenya used for drug deliveries and believe that no such 
airstrips exist. 
 
Domestic Programs: 
While there are no reliable statistics on domestic 
consumption of illicit narcotics, the National Campaign 
Against Drug Abuse (NCADA) estimates that twenty-one percent 
of 10 to 21 year olds use cannabis.  Kenya has made some 
progress in efforts to institute programs for demand 
reduction.  In addition to alcohol, illegal cannabs and 
legal khat are the domestic drugs of choice.  Heroin abuse is 
limited generally to members of the economic elite and a 
slightly broader range of users on the coast.  Academics and 
rehabilitation clinic staff argue that heroin use in Nairobi 
and along the coast has grown eponentially since 2003. 
Solvent abuse is widespread (and highly visible) among street 
children in Nairobi and other urban centers. 
 
Demand reduction efforts have largely been limited to 
publicity campaigns sponsored by private donors and a UNODC 
project to bring anti-drug education into the schools.  The 
NCADA continues to execute national public education 
programs on drugs.  Churches and non-governmental 
organizations provide limited rehabilitation and treatment 
programs for heroin addicts and  solvent-addicted street 
children.  With the support of USAID, the Ministry of Health 
is developing two rehabilitation and drug abuse treatment 
facilities in Nairobi and Mombasa.  UNODC is supporting a 
youth network on drug demand reduction. 
 
IV.  US Policy Initiatives and Programs 
U.S. Policy Initiatives: 
The principal U.S. anti-narcotics objective in Kenya is to 
interdict the flow of narcotics to the United States.  We 
seek to accomplish this objective through law enforcement 
cooperation, the encouragement of a strong Kenyan government 
commitment to narcotics interdiction, and strengthening 
Kenyan anti-narcotics and overall judicial capabilities. 
 
Bilateral Cooperation and Accomplishments: 
There was a modest expansion of USG bilateral cooperation 
with Kenya and surrounding countries on anti-narcotics 
matters in 2005.  Anti-narcotics training opportunities and 
equipment offers have also been the hallmark of bilateral 
assistance to the ANU.  Previously, the U.S. provided the ANU 
with computers and related equipment and has facilitated 
several DEA courses.  The United States remains active in the 
Mini-Dublin Group, which has responsibility for coordinating 
anti-narcotics assistance from several Western donors. 
Additionally, the USG worked with the UNODC, the UK High 
Commission, and the Government of Kenya to develop clear 
guidelines for the seizure, analysis, and disposal of 
narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.  If adopted, the 
new regulations would remove current legal ambiguities which 
have hindered successful prosecution of drug trafficking 
cases.  Additionally, the USG provided U.S. speaker 
programming on drug abuse to raise public awareness of the 
growing rates of heroin addiction in the coastal region. 
USAID also provides support to projects to develop addiction 
treatment services to heroin addicts in Nairobi and on the 
Kenyan coast. 
 
The Road Ahead: 
The USG will continue to take advantage of its good relations 
with Kenyan law enforcement to build professionalism, 
operational capacity, and information sharing.  As a regional 
hub, Nairobi remains a key location for conducting regional 
training and other regional initiatives and the USG will 
actively seek ways to maximize anti-narcotics efforts both in 
Kenya and throughout East Africa.  Perhaps most 
significantly, we will work with local, regional and 
international partners to better understand and combat the 
flow of international narcotics, particularly heroin, through 
Kenya to the United States.  We also plan to continue to 
expand our public awareness outreach to assist demand 
 
reduction efforts in Kenya. 
 
V. Chemical Control 
The production of precursor chemicals in Kenya is believed to 
be minimal or non existent.  Since 2000, UNODC has 
implemented a project focusing on illicit drug control in 
East Africa.  Under this project, UNODC worked closely with 
the Kenyan National Drug Regulatory Authority in establishing 
a Precursor Control Steering Committee in 2005. 
Additionally, UNODC provided assistance to the Kenyan 
government to enhance Kenyan precursor control legislation to 
conform with the three international narcotics control 
conventions ratified by the government of Kenya. 
BELLAMY