"I recall driving peacefully at night in the company of my turn boy. Then all of a sudden there was a maddening flash from the opposite direction and I rammed into an oncoming canter truck head on," he recalls.

He then remembers being cruelly dragged out of his damaged lorry and being hurled to the ground.

"At first I expected they would take me to hospital. Then they started raining blows on me. They frisked my pockets and took all the valuables," Ibrahim painfully recalls shaking his head in anger.

The six gangsters, who were armed with crude weapons, then started emptying the 40,000 litres of oil in his tanker.

"They abandoned the mission after realising I was ferrying factory oil, also know as black oil. This has limited use and has no ready market. They, however, stole all the wheels and spanners," he adds.

Unlike the two occupants of the vehicle he collided with who died at the scene from injuries sustained from the crash and beating from the thugs, Ibrahim was lucky to survive.

He recalls having been attacked more than 10 times previously in the course of his 29-year career as a tanker driver, but never before had he been this devastated.

Ibrahim is just one of the hundreds of victims of a criminal syndicate operating freely in the Kenyan highways targeting fuel tankers.

A senior police officer inspects a tanker hidden in a depot in Industrial area, Nairobi used for the storage of siphoned fuel. Photo/File/Standard

The criminals attack tankers, carjack them and empty their contents. Some criminals then crash them on the roadside making it appear like they were involved in an accident.

Now transporters and truck drivers are living in constant fear following an increase in attacks by the criminals, especially at night.

"One of our tankers ferrying 24,000 litres of petrol was seized by gangsters in Olkalou last month," laments Shamir Yakub, director of Roy Hauliers Limited.

Initially Yakub hoped to recover his truck and the fuel. He had even offered a Sh200,000 reward to anybody who could assist in the recovery.

"The lorry was recovered a day later in Naivasha. The crew had not been harmed but it was empty. Now I am Sh1.2 million poorer," laments Yakub.

This is not the first time the company, which has 70 trucks that ferry goods to places as far as Congo, has been victim of carjacking in the country.

"Last year, one of our small tankers was attacked in Mwea. It was ferrying petroleum products worth over Sh1million to Wang’uru. It was diverted to Timau where it was recovered a few days later without the cargo," he explains.

During the Mwea attack, Roy Hauliers were not the only victims. At least 20 other trucks were attacked at that spot on the same day.

Witnesses say the attackers were in police uniform adding they were well versed with the movement of the vehicles.

"They were about five heavily armed men in police uniform. They demanded to know why we had delayed for more than a day after loading the engine oil at Nairobi’s Kenya Pipeline Depot," a victim who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal told CCI.

He says the thugs were well coordinated and had apparently trailed the movement and content of all the vehicles they targeted.

Abdullahi Ibrahim, a former truck driver next to a petrol tanker at Mlolongo weigh bridge. He quit the job after gangsters attacked him at Mtito Andei on Mombasa Road crippling him. Photos/Jennifer Wachie/ Standard

The well-coordinated gangs gather intelligence at depots where they have accomplices before pursuing the vehicles. He says the criminals, who operate across the country, appear to enjoy police protection.

Our investigations established that in Nakuru and Naivasha, some robbers have bought tankers, which are equipped with powerful generators used to drain highjacked tankers in minutes.

The most notorious spots for oil tankers were identified as Mtito Andei, Sultan Hamud, Manyani, Maji ya Chumvi, Tsavo and Kiboko in the Coast Province.

Naivasha and Mai Mahiu areas are also fertile grounds for the illegal oil dealers who waylay the transporters. At times they drop objects in the middle of the highway to force the tankers to stop before pouncing on the drivers.

In some instances, drivers are recruited into the scam and deliver the tankers to the racketeers who pilfer the oil and pay them for a fraction of what the oil is worth.

So dangerous is the gang that in 2007, they gunned down an oil marketer in Nairobi while escorting his tanker from the oil depot on Nanyuki Road.

"After detecting his oil products were being adulterated, the dealer thought it wise to be escorting his trucks from the depot to his petrol station in Gikomba. He was shot dead," says a transporter, who has been a victim of the cartel and has been threatened with death.

"It is extremely difficult for transporters to control their drivers. Some work in cahoots with the criminals and if you report to the police, no action is taken," he adds.

"Oil products are better than gold. They have a ready market and there is always a shortage and anybody can sell it. To make matters worse, thieves are protected by some police officers," the transporter said.

Undercover surveillance of the oil pilfering has in the past shown police cars trooping into known dens of the vice with some captured receiving money from the pilferers.

But deputy police spokesperson, Charles Owino Wahong’o defended the force from accusations of complicity and association with the criminals.

He, however, noted that some officers have in the past scandalised the police force for being involved in criminal activities.

"It is true we have had instances where police officers are working in cahoots with the criminals. When such actions are reported to us, we always act," he says.

Owino adds it is very difficult to completely eradicate the siphoning of fuel from tankers as the dealers disguise their activities.

"Every time we raid the premises the operators shift their bases. Some park their trucks behind highways in "warehouses" where it is difficult to detect their criminal activities," Owino notes.

"We have entertained a lot of foreign drivers on our roads. Some of them are criminals on the run and have no certificates of good conduct like us," laments Nicholas Mbugua, Secretary General of Kenya Long Distant Truck Drivers Union.

Mbugua says some drivers are used by criminals to block other tankers which are then forced to break suddenly, giving the gangsters a chance to severe the brake cables.

"Once the break cables are slashed, the trailer jams and the vehicle stalls. The driver and the crew are left at the mercy of the crooks," Mbugua explains.

Out of all the long distant drivers plying Kenyan roads, 30 per cent are foreigners from Tanzania, Uganda, Eritrea and Somalia.

Mbugua claims sacked loaders use their knowledge of the tankers and their operations on the road for carjacking the vehicles and this has aggravated the situation.

But the foreign drivers deny involvement in crime.

"I have been driving trucks across East Africa for nine years. I have also been attacked on a number of occasions in Kenya. The problem is not foreigners but Kenyan criminals," Mr Abdalla Iddi, a Tanzanian driver says.

Transporters say the problem has reached alarming levels since last year adding they are now being forced to seek police protection while travelling.

"We are incurring a lot of costs. Besides installing Global Position System to monitor the trucks, we now have to escort the trucks. We stopped night transportation," Yakub laments.