Pulpit bandits: Inside the shadowy syndicate looting Nairobi's houses of worship

A trail of CCTV footage, undercover operations and court confessions expose syndicate targeting Kenya churches.[File, Courtesy]

At 5:43 AM on Sunday, August 2, 2026, as the morning chill hung over the Donholm neighborhood in eastern Nairobi, a lone figure slipped through the gates of a local church. Wearing a dark cap pulled low over his face, blue jeans, and a heavy black jacket, he moved with the practiced calmness of someone who knew the terrain.

Service was hours away, and the sanctuary was quiet. Slipping past early-rising ushers, the man headed straight for the church’s media office. He retrieved a hidden key, unlocked the storage vault, and spent the next eleven minutes methodically packing high-end broadcast equipment into a dark backpack. By 5:54 AM, he walked back into the morning air carrying five professional broadcast cameras and an audio interface card—gear crucial for the church's weekly online broadcast, valued at over Sh2.1 million.