On the trail of Kenya’s ‘most wanted thugs’

Bernard Matheri alias Rasta was Wanugu’s comrade in crime [Photo:File]

 

By James Mwangi

At a time when gun robberies were a novel headache to State security, Peter Mwea Wakinyonga and Gerald Wambugu Munyeria alias ‘Wanugu’ ranked as the most wanted gangsters.

Wakinyonga and Wanugu were in the mid-1970s and 90s respectively the most hunted-down criminals who besides their infamy, had a lot in common even as they went ‘mute’ under hails of bullets.

The two lived off crime albeit at separate times but interestingly, the police killed them on the same date eighteen years apart.

Wakinyonga ruled in the world of crime in the 70s and was listed as the first most notorious gangster of the time while Wanugu reigned in the 90s, in collaboration with the likes of Bernard Matheri Thuo alias ‘Rasta’, Anthony Ngugi Kanagi alias ‘Wacucu.

When police killed Wanugu, Police Commissioner Shadrack Kiruki declared him the second worst gangster after Wakinyonga who had been killed exactly 18 years earlier.

Wakinyonga, who hailed from Kangemi was linked to several bank raids and car thefts particularly in Nairobi. He reportedly ‘robbed from the rich then gave to the poor’.

He had escaped police dragnets for a while. At one time five months to his death he fled with bullet wounds on his buttocks and the right collarbone. His accomplice was however killed. He would, three months later shoot and injure a police sergeant.

He was hunted for robbing Sh330,000 from a bank in Thika, Sh200,000 from a city bank branch along Wabera Street, another  Sh80,000, several car thefts and murdering a Mr Bloch before taking away his car.

Police armed to the teeth and on a tip-off traced Wakinyonga to Nyakiambi Lodge and Nightclub in Kangemi, Nairobi on June 26, 1978 midnight, then surrounded it.

The pub was full to capacity with revelers enjoying his generosity. Interestingly, Wakinyonga had already dug his grave near his father’s and had sworn to kill a police officer before he died.

Coincidentally, at the pub he was boasting that he would shoot and kill the one famous officer, Patrick Shaw. While still binge-drinking, he noticed an officer, grabbed a machine gun from him but the officer pulled out a revolver, prompting an exchange of gunfire and confusion.

The dramatic firing lasted for a while before Wakinyonga was overpowered shortly after midnight on June 27 and the police recovered a revolver and several rounds of ammunition. Three bystanders, including a woman, suffered injuries. Drama would follow his burial as police made unanticipated swoop targeting young men and women.

A couple of years later, his replica would emerge in the name of Wanugu, wanted criminal  who hailed from Kamuyu in Nyeri. 

By the time Wakinyonga was ‘silenced’, Wanugu was just a clueless eight-year-old boy but as fate would have it, he fitted in the former thug’s shoes to second him in the record of most wanted gangsters in Kenya’s history of crime.

The former city mechanic-cum-tout was in the infamous group of Wacucu and Rasta that proved much a thorn in the flesh between 1995 and 1996.

On August 21, 1995 then Police Commissioner Kiruki released the names of the three terming them the most wanted criminals. Besides, a Sh100,000 bounty was placed on their heads.

They were accused of murdering  high-profile civilians and senior police and military officers, violent robberies and carjacking mostly in the city. This was to mark the beginning of a massive manhunt.

Wanugu was also accused of murdering a Nyahururu based European expatriate Christopher Morris. He too escaped several police traps, at one point escaping death narrowly at Ongata Rongai when police busted them. His accomplice Wacucu was killed instantly during the fierce shoot out.

However, his hideaway was unmasked on June 27, 1996 as a team of flying squad on public tip-off tracked Wanugu to his rented abode at Kabati-ini, Nakuru. Armed Wanugu accompanied by his girlfriend on errands run into the elite squad.

Sensing danger he grabbed his fiancé as a human shield as he fired back at the police.  This did not deter the police from reciprocating and in a matter of minutes the two lay dead their bodies riddled with bullets.

Interestingly, like Wakinyonga who had prepared his resting place in advance, Wanugu too had expressed premonition of his dead end in writing a few months earlier.

However, being just civilians without military and weaponry training, their unrivalled tactics startled the security apparatus.

He was ‘heroically’ laid to rest by scores of mourners who attended his burial as police celebrated his demise, describing him as the second worst underworld figure after his ‘role model’.

Now 34 and 16 years since the celebrated villains in crime were hushed, up their stories are still narrated albeit at times spiked with hyperboles.