By WAWERU MUGO

KENYA: One day in May 2000, Kenyan drug lord Ibrahim Akasha was walking hand-in-hand with his wife when a gunman on a motorbike sped by.

The two had just stepped into Bloedstraat (Blood Street), in one of Amsterdam’s red districts, when the man whipped out a pistol and fired at Akasha.

The bullets ripped through his face, tore his heart and abdomen. He slumped to the ground, dead.

Akasha’s death opened a window for a public peek into the operations of his trafficking empire in Kenya, and into the nasty underworld as gangland executions ensued in the Netherlands.

It was believed Akasha was caught in the crossfire of a vicious war between Dutch and Yugoslav gangs.

Bloodbath

Media reports indicated Akasha had fallen out with Yugoslav barons active in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe over the non-payment of a consignment of heroin worth Sh200 million.

A bloodbath followed his execution. Top barons in the Netherlands were eliminated in well planned assassinations and street gunfights.

In 2004, another drug dealer Mounir Barsoum was shot dead in his car at traffic lights in Amsterdam, as a spate of gangland assassinations escalated. His daughter, 12, was airlifted to hospital in a critical condition. The gunman fired ten shots into the car.

According to Dutch newspapers, Barsoum had sold Akasha’s consignment of drugs to well-known baron, Sam Klepper.

 However, the deal went sour when the drugs were not paid in time, drawing Barsoum’s brother, Magdi, into the dispute as a mediator. In 2002, Magdi was shot dead in the same street where Akasha had died.

Magdi was the man who had invited Akasha to the Netherlands as the dispute festered.  Some reports indicated Akasha was actually lured to Amsterdam to be killed, as the foreign drug barons had lost confidence in him.

His troubles had started in 1996 when he was arrested and charged with drug trafficking in a Nairobi court. Newspapers splashed his pictures, and the publicity reportedly angered the barons who felt it could hurt their interests locally.

Sh900 m heroine

When one of his brothers was arrested and charged with trafficking heroin worth Sh13 million in 1998, Akasha turned to a Yugoslav conduitto ship his consignments to Europe. It was this agent who failed to pay, sparking the dispute that eventually led to Akasha’s demise.

Dutch police believed Akasha was killed on the orders of Klepper. But just five months after Akasha’s death, Klepper was killed in a public shooting among shoppers.

 Another drug baron believed to have done business with Magdi, Klaas Bruinsma, had been shot dead outside The Hilton in Amsterdam in 1991.

“It is widely believed these and several other gangland killings relate to an ongoing feud between Dutch and Yugoslav criminals,” online news portal Expatica reported in 2004.

 Desperate to have the money paid, Akasha had reportedly abducted the Yugoslav broker involved in the deal. He held him for two months and insisted he would only release him after the cash was paid.

 Just days after he flew to the Netherlands, surveillance of his activities intensified after police found nearly five tonnes of heroin worth Sh900 million in his house. Kenyan police also alerted their Dutch counterparts.

Since then, the Netherlands has emerged as a preferred destination for traffickers shipping Colombian drugs through Eastern Africa. For instance, a haul of cocaine worth Sh6 billion that was seized in 2004 was destined for the Netherlands. The cocaine was destroyed following a court order.