The gangland secret code

By John Gerezani

The guy was an imposing six feet four inches tall, pitch dark in complexion and with feral eyes receding into sunken eyeholes, a sign of hard living one may think.

But the chubby cheeks, a contradiction of sorts, gave him the aura of a fasting monk.

"Just who is he?" many wondered.

He had been brought in a couple of days earlier, charged with nine counts of robbery with violence.

He betrayed no emotions and neither was he nonplussed by his new surroundings.

On his forearm was a big tattoo of a ferocious lion preying on a rabbit but what caught my eye were three dots next to the tattoo.

They were neither birth nor juju marks. It was not until l found a group of netizens huddled in a corner discussing who the chap was that l realised that l was looking at a legend, the man who was behind the majority of car thefts in the entire eastern suburbs of the city in the early to mid 1990s.

"This guy looks harmless," l quipped. "You are a dolt. Those three dots on his forearm are the gangland code standing for hospital, prison and graveyard, the three possible ends of a gangster.

"That’s as tough as they come," one in the group answered.

That only whetted my appetite of making contact with the subject as a matter of urgency.

Smart operator

By the time l finally made a link-up, l had learnt that though he was the "Capo-di-uti"(mastermind), he rarely moved around armed, relying instead on foot soldiers to pull off the works.

That partly explains why for a long time, the cops could not link him to any crime.

However, the street credo is clear that a boss must take care of his men, so the brother always ensured the release of his nabbed chums.

In the event that he didn’t have ready chwaa, he would pay in kind.

"Do you want a new set of tyres or engine parts or battery for your car in lieu?" was the standard question.

Nyols was a dope smoking high school drop out, born into a dysfunctional multi-lingual family who got into crime for kicks.

His elder bro, Kip, was the ace gangster, and since kid bro was an avid crime movie buff, he quickly put into practice what he had watched by using Kip’s Taurus ndenga (pistol) to shoot dead the house pet as an initiation rite.

Many were surprised that these siblings whose dad owned a big spread of tea plantations in the Rift Valley could resort to crime. So what was his modus operandi? You would park your ride in the parking lot of one of the popular entertainment joints in Eastlands unaware that as you enjoyed, a bunch of guttersnipes in Nyols’ employ would be using Q Dras — those crude but effective T-shaped metal devices that left damaged vehicle key holes in their wake — to enter and strip your car bare.

Cheating police officers

If the Koro (watchie) hasn’t noticed all that, Nyols would then enter and drive off.

In the second scenario, a dapper Nyols would drive to the parking lot of a major tyre-fitting centre and lie in wait. As a customer moved indoors to effect payment, Nyols would walk to his car, hot-wire it and drive away.

Perhaps the most amusing style was when he hit town, buying Koros chicken, chips and drinks, which he laced with drugs. As the poor chaps dozed off, Nyols’ team would strike stripping bare all cars parked in the vicinity off valuables.

Upon arrest on another charge, the brother left an entire cop station bewildered. He cheated them into allowing him to clean the station only for him to vanish and switch residence.

I decided to confront Nyols one sultry afternoon to confirm these vibes from his henchmen. With a wave of the hand, he coyly smiled and said: "Achana na story za mafala,(don’t listen to quislings)". Such is the life of a gangster. Cool and collected, he never confirms or denies anything because having escaped a date at the hospital, landing in prison means there is only one destination left if he talks — the graveyard. The code will have been broken.