President William Ruto on November 7 ordered the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA)officers to carry out a joint operation to unearth contraband goods hindering the taxman from achieving its revenue targets.
The raid targeted among others, cheap liquor manufacturing plants in Athi River including Manchester Distillers where DCI sleuths and KRA officials recovered more than 800,000 bottles of alcohol and 130,000 fake KRA stamps.
The consignment was packed in 33,529 cartons each containing 25 bottles. Also in the consignment were 26,628 cartons of smart vodka, 1,569 cartons of Power Vodka, 1,336 crates of Gold Ice of 500ml, 546 crates of Smart Ice 500 ml, and 3,450 boxes of Smart Vodka, all without KRA stamps.
The alcohol was confiscated by the KRA officials and taken to their warehouse where it’s kept under the watch of Rapid Response Unit while the counterfeit stamps are with the DCI detectives as the factory stores remain closed.
“Godown number 11 where Manchester Distillers operate the unknown alcoholic production plant has been sealed off by KRA officers until investigations are complete. The audit will determine how long the alcoholic production plant has been operational, and the customs duties payable to the government,” DCI and KRA joint brief reads in part.
Preliminary investigations found that Manchester Distillers (K) Company has only one director and shareholder named Mwaniki Nyaga Mwaura who is on the run.
His workers were questioned by the DCI sleuths and their statements recorded. Mr. Mwaniki’s warehouse and offices situated at Gibi Business Park in Athi River are also under investigations.
The detectives established that Manchester Distillers run an alcohol processing plant where a number of cartons containing alcohol with fake stamps were netted.
Custom rules require that any person running an alcohol plant must install CCTV cameras for the purposes of monitoring by KRA but the detectives found that the management of Manchester Distillers had disconnected the cameras to avoid being monitored.
“Cybercrime unit of the DCI have been invited to examine the CCTV machine. The gadgets have so far been collected by the cybercrime officers,” a senior DCI officer said.
Another raid at go-down number 24 which was being used by the workers and directors had a number of KRA level 3 and 4 stamps and KEBs. It is still being held by detectives for further examination.
Go-down number 27 which Manchester Distillers uses as a warehouse had many empty bottles of beer and empty drums suspected to have contained ethanol, while go-downs 14 and 28 contained empty bottles and drums.
Detectives also found that the distillers ran a secret plant at go-down number 12 complete with all the machines used in alcohol processing.
In it, the officers recovered an invoice book indicating that the lorry they had seized earlier was headed to Nyeri ferrying 1000 cartons of alcohol and had been loaded at the same go-down.
In August 2022, a similar raid was carried out by a team of multi-agency officers and local authorities in Athi River, on unlicensed distilleries and 24 suspects be behind the business were arrested.
During the operation which targeted Kingoni warehouses, the team which arrived at around 3 pm were unable to gain access into facility after the workers locked themselves inside and started destroying the evidence.
