UN Report: How Kenya invited and hosted Somali pirates

MV Faina, whose release from Somali pirates is said to have been negotiated by a piracy suspect arrested in Belgium. PHOTO: COURTESY: FILE/STANDARD]

MOMBASA: Questions abound over who in Kenya benefited from billions of shillings laundered by two Somali men jailed in Belgium over extortion and supporting sea piracy.

The latest United Nations Monitoring Report on Somalia and Eritrea depicts Kenya as a gangsters’ paradise where officials can easily be misled by blue collar criminals to allow high crimes, including money laundering, to thrive and morph into legitimate-looking business.