OPERATION USALAMA X - 2024 NYANZA REGION
Acting on intelligence, the Operation USALAMA X team launched a three-day operation in Kisumu city where major searches were conducted in various business premises.
During the operation, the team recovered a range of uncustomed goods, including Vaseline, Dove, and St. Ives products from Best Ladies Beauty Shop, where one suspect, Brian Ouya, was arrested and is assisting the police with further investigations.
The Multi-agency team also conducted searches in various emporiums among them Western Emporium Shop along Oginga Odinga Road where PVC-U tins and soda flakes suspected to be uncustomed were seized. Abdulrehman Mohamed Yasheen, the shop owner, was arrested in connection with the seized goods.
Later in the day, the team conducted another search at Leo Chemist along Kisumu-Kakamega Road, where they found various uncustomed goods, including Kamagra tablets and oral jelly.
At Victoria Healthcare Chemist located at Taff Mall Kisumu, significant quantities of Kamagra products were seized where four suspects namely Bhavesh Kardan, Dennis Akunga, Bernard Otieno, and Nirmal Patel were arrested.
Operation Usalama is the brainchild of The Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation (EAPCCO), a regional police body whose membership consists of Chiefs of Police of the 14 countries and the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Co-operation Organisation (SARPCCO) which is principally responsible for the prevention and combating of Cross-border and Transnational Organised Crimes.
The operation was neccessitated as a result of the recognition by the Chiefs of police of both regions of the threats posed by transnational crimes including Motor vehicle theft, Narcotic drugs, Trafficking in persons(TIP) /Smuggling of Migrants (SOM), Proliferation of small arms and light weapons, Terrorism and fugitive tracking, Smuggling of minerals, counterfeit and illicit goods and the need to co-operate in the fight against cross- border and transnational crimes that afflict the two regions.
The two regional bodies have in the past successfully organized five simultaneous operations code named USALAMA I-IX in both regions in 2013 - 2023 in the fight against transnational crimes within the two regions.
