A man who police said has been on a wanted list of narcotics traffickers was in the weekend arrested alongside his girlfriend with heroin of unknown amount of money.
The man identified as Hillary Wanjiku Wachira was arrested along Limuru Road in a police ambush and drugs found in his car.
His girlfriend who is also a student at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture Technology was also arrested from her hostel in Juja after she was found with 50 sachets of the drugs.
A sachet costs up to Sh100.
Wachira, who police termed "notorious" had been on the run for long.
After the arrest, police searched his house in Juja, Kiambu County, and arrested his roommate, university student Caroline Nyambura Gituma, who was found with drugs.
In May 2019, Wachira had been arrested within Nairobi’s Mathare area with heroin packages, he later escaped from police custody under mysterious circumstances leading to the issuance of a warrant of arrest against him.
He is one of the many traffickers in the country selling drugs with impunity to slum dwellers and university students.
The seizure of the narcotics made police conclude that there was steady supply in the city.
"What we are yet to establish is how these drugs find their way into the city and the barons behind it because the suspect we have arrested is just a seller," said Nairobi head of Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Bernard Nyakwaka.
Police have in the past made such seizures but failed to make follow-ups on the source, which has made it difficult to break the chain of supply.
The police suspect those behind the supply of the narcotics are powerful individuals. They said most of those they had been arresting and arraigning for selling such drugs were not the real people behind the trade.
DCI boss George Kinoti said he had ordered detectives to always make follow-ups after such seizures.
"Be it drugs, contraband goods, money laundering or any other crime, we must deal with the entire chain," said Mr Kinoti.
Drug abuse in Nairobi, especially in slums, has become rampant. The situation has been compounded by the fact that the narcotics are easily available, according to police.
“If you walk through Kampala Ndogo and Kosovo in Mathare, you will not believe it. People are dying for abusing drugs. Yet we don’t know how they get there and those behind the trade,” an anti-drugs campaigner said.
