Dressed smartly, they monitor you from a distance. Some even dine and wine next to their target. You will even share a pew in church with others as they loudly pray but prey on you.
These are thieves who have perfected the art of stealing from people in places such as religious gatherings, funerals, hotels, hospitals, supermarkets and police station parking lots.
The thieves, who mainly target women worshippers in churches, wait for the opportune moment to strike and leave the premises unnoticed while carrying handbags containing a trove of valuables.
Holy Communion
“I went to church one Sunday morning and a smartly dressed woman came and sat next to me. Knowing the church was the safest place, I left my handbag on the floor and went to receive the Holy Communion only for me to find my bag gone,” says Salome Njoroge.
Reverend Father Charles Kinyua, Director of Radio Waumini, says he hears cases of women losing handbags daily, adding that there is nothing that can be done because it is difficult to read the mind of every churchgoer.
“The church is a congregation of sinners and there are those who go there to look for an encounter with God. Then there is the category that puts themselves in strategic places to steal. People need to redefine the reason why they go to church; we cannot bar thieves from coming to church,” he says. Father CK, as he is popularly known, says there is need for the church to talk more on spiritual connection to help those with intentions of stealing. Mosques also bear the brunt of thieves who target shoes left by worshippers at the entrance when they go in for prayers especially on Fridays.
A thief caught stealing shoes in one of the mosques in Mombasa was recently forced to chew raw red pepper as punishment. In a video that went viral, the thief was captured confessing that he would not steal again from Sakina or any other mosque. Nairobi’s Jamia mosque’s administrator, Said Abdallah says a number of worshippers have also lost their shoes and this has led to construction of pigeon-hole cabinets to have worshippers keep their shoes.
“The lockable boxes are rented out at Sh500 per year and the money is channeled to charity events. This has reduced shoe theft by 90 per cent. The CCTVs installed and watchmen deployed within the mosque have also helped us arrest a number of thieves,” he says.
Abdallah says most of those arrested are petty thieves who steal and sell the shoes to buy food while others are just doing it out of habit.
Other people have opted to keep expensive shoes in their cars and walk to the mosque in slippers or flip-flops.
In restaurants or events held in big hotels, robbers are more likely to target women’s handbags since they often hang their bags on the back of their chairs or rest them on the floor, making it easy for a thief to walk away with them.
“One day I walked into a restaurant and placed my bag on the floor. I got engrossed in a discussion with my friends and when I bent to pick my bag containing a trove of valuables it was gone,” says Roselyne Obala. It was then she realised that a couple who had sat right next to her table had left. The CCTV cameras at the restaurant were also not working on that day but she was convinced that it is they who took her bag.
She was quick to block her cellphone number from operating and Automated Teller Machine cards from being used by the pair. Unlike Obala, Christine Nekesa’s cellphone and expensive scarf were stolen from a hospital where she was admitted. She had gone to the hospital to deliver her first born child and was rushed from the ward to the delivery room but on returning with her newborn baby, her valuables were missing. “I wanted to share the good news with my mother back in the village but could not find the phone in the locker where a nurse had placed it for me when being wheeled to the delivery room. The nurse even denied having kept or seen the phone,” she says.
Efforts to recover her phone did not bear fruit, and the hospital’s administrator maintained that it is a patient’s responsibility to surrender valuables and have an inventory issued by the hospital or have a relative take her belongings home. Nairobi police boss Philip Ndolo says institutions such as hotels, churches, mosques and hospitals should invest in technology to beef-up security. “There is need to invest in CCTVs even as people watch out for their valuables,” he says.
At funerals, a number or mourners have been left stranded after thieves who masquaraded as relatives or friends of the deceased stole their belongings. Last year, a number of mourners from Kenya and Sudan were robbed at the burial of Monica Kimani in Gilgil, Nakuru.
Her father Paul Ngarama was quoted in a section of the media saying the theft had inflicted more pain to the family after a mourner from South Sudan lost an expensive iPhone, forcing Monica’s father to give her money to buy a new one.
Thieves also prey on victims using obituaries placed in newspapers; they ensure that a member of their gang is given a lift in one of the vehicles used by the bereaved.
“One has to be careful especially when the committee announces that family members are to be provided with transport - you may end up carrying thugs in your car,” says Raymond Oremo.
Some thieves attend funerals and take turns to vandalise vehicles. This has seen some mourners ensure there is someone guarding their vehicles during funerals. Police stations are not spared either. Matatu operators whose vehicles are impounded and towed to the stations, have suffered vandalism.
“Vandalism of matatus in police stations was worse until 2010, but there are cases of music systems and vehicle components still being stolen,” says Matatu Welfare Association Chairman, Dickson Mbugua.
We struck a deal with the police that no vehicle should be detained at the station unless it is unroadworthy because those with minor issues are taken to the garage for repair or inspection.
