Risking life to sneak in contraband

Despite thorough searches by warders, inmates find ingenious ways of trading in contraband including illegal drugs, writes ANTONY GITONGA

For a visitor to Naivasha Prison, the high walls and watchtowers manned by mean looking guards and imposing black gates are sights that strike fear and awe.

Thorough searches that are carried out on visitors leave many in fear. The searches start at the main gate, a kilometre away from the main prison, and go on until one leaves the institution.

For inmates transfering from other prisons, their search is even more intense and meticulous like looking for a needle in a bale of hay. In some jails, prisoners have complained that they are forced to strip naked and officers order them to squat as they search for contrabands in all their openings.

The searches, the prison authorities explain, are meant to stop any contraband from entering the prisons.

Smart people

These searches have seen all manner of property recovered from the inmates.

But even with these searches, some smart inmates have managed to sneak in various contraband ranging from cigarettes to bhang, some with the help of unscrupulous warders.

Officer in charge Naivasha Prison Patrick Mwenda shows an X-ray image that revealed Bernard Kosgey, an inmate, had a mobile phone hidden in the lower abdomen. [PHOTOS: ANTONY GITONGA/STANDARD]

And this is the norm in all of the country’s penal institutions as inmates try to outsmart the authorities in the game.

Former inmates explain that the main reason for sneaking in the contraband is for trading purposes. Some inmates leave the prison loaded with cash.

However, the recent incident where a mobile phone was recovered in the rectum of an inmate left many in shock over the extent the inmates would go to sneak in the contraband.

The move nearly backfired after the gadget got embedded in the inmate’s intestines.

Shocking discovery

Concerned officers from Naivasha Prison had to rush the inmate, Bernard Kosgey, to Naivasha District Hospital after he failed to pass stool for three days.

After an X-ray, both the medical personnel and the warders were shocked to discover a mobile phone deeply stuck in the lower abdomen.

Doctors had to conduct a minor operation on Kosgey, and an hour later, the mobile phone covered in polythene paper was extracted.

The officer in charge of the institution, Mr Patrick Mwenda, expressed shock after the phone was recovered. He believed he had cleared contraband from the prison, but he was mistaken.

"The X-ray clearly showed that there was a mobile phone in the body and it is worrying to see the lengths these inmates can go to sneak in contrabands in prison," he said.

He said the inmate first complained of being uncomfortable and failure to pass stool for three days.

"Our investigation indicated that the inmate who was transferred from Kamiti could be carrying a metallic object in his body and we decided to take him for an X-ray," Mwenda explained.

The X-ray taken at Naivasha District Hospital clearly showed a phone lodged in the inmate’s lower abdomen.

"The patient denies the existence of a phone in his abdomen and refuses to be given an abdominal examination though an X-ray indicates the presence of the phone," Mwenda noted.

This is not a unique occurrence since many more inmates conceal the contraband this way.

Stories are told of how an influential inmate at Kamiti prison sold chang’aa some years back with the full knowledge of senior warders.

"He would sell the brew openly and he was one of the richest men in prison and the warders would literally queue to get a tip from him every Friday," says a former inmate.

The phones sneaked in prison are at times used for defrauding unsuspecting people outside. Many con games have been propagated from prison.

With an opportunity to make a quick buck, many inmates have come up with different and crooked means of sneaking in contrabands.

In many cases, contraband has been hidden in shoes, soles, the seams of clothes and inside bar soaps or bread.

The inmates would carve out a section of the soap and ‘bury’ the contraband before they are sneaked into the prison.

This has, however, sometimes been easily discovered by hawk-eyed warders who sometimes cut their bar soaps into small pieces uncovering the contraband.

Another design includes cutting the inner soles of shoes and slippers where the contraband is hidden.

For those who don’t want to risk, they pay some rogue warders to sneak in the contraband, a move which has seen several officers sacked for indiscipline.

Others are bold enough to use visitors. A fortnight ago in Naivasha, a man was nabbed trying to sneak in close to 600 rolls of bhang.

Highly profitable

Warders manning the gates managed to recover the drug that was well stashed inside two pairs of sports shoes. It emerged that the bhang was destined for two inmates who are on death row with one of them having been recently transferred from Kamiti Prison.

The suspect who claimed his innocence at one time asked the warders to name their price, but the guards stood their ground and handed him over to police. It emerged that one roll of bhang was going for Sh100 meaning that the sellers could have made close to Sh60,000.

Due to the unavailability of commodities like cigarettes and bhang, which are on high demand, their prices are hiked depending on risk. Those who can’t do without these drugs are forced to pay exorbitant prices to the merchants.

According to Mwenda, efforts to sneak in contraband by inmates is rife in all the penal institutions in the country. He is, however, quick to note that stringent measures have seen inmates opt for new modes of sneaking in contraband.

"We have acted on those warders working with inmates in this trade and we have seen cases of contraband reduced to a minimum," he says.

Mwenda says soon after he arrived in Naivasha Prison in 2008, he discovered that the illegal trade was the norm and he had to form a special squad, which took months to get rid of contraband.

He says during the period, over 200 mobile phones, SIM cards, knives, cigarettes, electric heaters and other contraband were confiscated from the inmates.

"The operation met opposition from some warders, but at the end of the day they complied and contrabands are a thing of the past in this prison," he says.

However, it’s now emerging that he may be wrong. A warder at Naivasha Prison, who asked not to be named, says several inmates have been nabbed with contraband in their rectum.

"They cover things like cigarettes in plastic bags and insert them deep into the anal system and it’s removed once they are safe in the cells," he says.

Banking services

He adds that he is aware that women inmates do the same. However, he says in the case of women it is trickier because some of them prefer to hide the contraband in their private parts.

The warder says the inmate discovered with a mobile phone in his rectum was only unfortunate to have been caught, since most of them do this.

"He must have hidden it in his rectum, but somehow it ended up in his intestines putting him in danger," he adds.

A former inmate who identified himself only as Mwas, says hiding contraband in the rectum is the norm in all prisons.

Mwas, who was jailed in Kamiti, says due to the stringent security measures put in by the prisons management, inmates have come up with ingenious ways of earning a livelihood through selling contraband.

He says the rich have ‘banks’ where they keep their cash. The ‘bank’ according to him is the rectums of poor inmates who get paid for their ‘courier’ services.

"Business in prison is done using notes and not coins. The notes are rolled and hidden in the ‘banks’ and whenever the owner needs some cash he calls the inmate who heads to the toilet and comes back with the required cash," he explains.