Four suspected highway robbers were on Thursday arrested in Emuhaya, Vihiga County, after a foiled theft attempt on a transit truck ferrying cement from Machakos to Busia via the Kisumu – Busia route.
In the 6am incident at Asikote section, the 55-year-old driver of the FAW truck belonging to Mombasa Cement Ltd spotted people hanging on the left side door, before the door flung open. The people are then said to have started throwing out sacks of cement.
He hooted repeatedly to scare them off but the illegal offloading continued, with more of the thugs dragging the felled bags to the thickets.
This made the driver to stop the truck, only for the men to advance towards him.
“Luckily, Embali Police Station officers who were on patrol got curious about the rapid honks, speeding to the location just in time to save the overpowered driver,”a police report reads in part. “The robbers scampered into the thickets with the police on their shadow, except one – Bernard Ochoyi Omari, 33 – who was cornered and arrested shouldering one of the stolen 50kg bags.”
The officers swept through the thickets and nearby houses, recovering nine bags of the stolen cement. Of the bags, one was recovered at the house of a suspect namely Boaz Amunabi Joshua alias Spear, and in the course of the search, the officers also recovered a blood stained machete, 21 mosquito nets, a sack of wheat among other suspected stolen items.
Other suspects arrested in the operation included Francis Khulali, 70, Anthony Etale, 22 and Winnie Odongo Ombati, 28. They were all placed in custody awaiting processing for arraignment on Friday, November 1.
