Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

A prominent businesswoman in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu county, is among five key suspects arrested in connection with theft of Kenya Power equipment worth more than Sh500 million.

The suspects were seized at their respective hideouts during a joint operation mounted by the police backed by security officers from Kenya Power’s regional office.

Uasin Gishu County Police Commander Benjamin Mwanthi confirmed the arrest, saying that the suspects were helping them with investigations into the spate of transformer vandalism in the region.

The police boss said they have also seized the white pickup vehicle used by the suspects in loading the vandalised transformers and other electrical equipment to the business woman’s house.

“We have made a major breakthrough in the arrest of the masterminds of transformer theft.

Ainabkoi MP Samuel Chepkonga was among scores of victims of the transformer vandalism syndicate who thronged the central police station on learning about the apprehension of the five suspects.

“These are the same suspects who vandalised a transformer tower in my village, plunging homes, including that of my mother, in darkness,” said an agitated Chepkonga.

He revealed that the same fate befell a public primary school adjacent to the vast agricultural land owned by a top leader in the country.

The MP thanked the multi-agency security team making the arrests.

“This is economic sabotage and I call upon the Judiciary to help tame the vice by giving the offenders stiffer penalties to deter others,” said Chepkonga.

According to the police commander, the businesswoman was arrested in her well-guarded residential house in Kapsoya estate in the outskirts of Eldoret town where the officers recovered several litres of transformer oil, and assorted copper wires.

She is said to have converted one of the rooms in her house into a store where the stolen transformers are kept.

The woman is said to be working in cahoots with four accomplices.

The stolen items are then transported through the porous borders to a neighboring country, mostly at night to evade security officers.
“We discovered through our investigations that the syndicate was happening in Kaptagat, Nandi, Kakamega and Eldoret. Investigators who were monitoring their activities discovered that they would steal a transformer and then converge three days later and disappear,” the police boss said.

Kenya Power said the wave of transformer thefts had resulted in blackouts in North Rift region with the most hit being Uasin Gishu, Nandi, Trans Nzoia and parts of West Pokot in the last two months.

According to KPLC chief security officer in charge of North Rift region Daniel Yagan the incidents have prompted them to launch an investigation that led to the recovery of the multi-million-shilling power utility equipment.

He said the company had lost 40 transformers valued at Sh120 million in four months.

Yagan said a joint operation by Kenya Power and the police managed caught the suspects in the act of vandalising a transformer at Kimumu estate within Eldoret on January 5.

He said when they arrived at the scene of the incident at Kimumu, the suspects had already brought down a transformer and loaded it onto a Toyota Hilux pick-up belonging to one of them.