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The two brothers at the centre of KCB Thika branch Sh52 million loss last week are not your typical suspects who would top the police ‘Wanted’ list. Halford Munene Murakaru, 32, and his younger brother Charles Mwangi Murakaru, 30, were arrested on November 25, at Marurui in Kasarani, Nairobi, following a tip off from the public.
They are both engineering graduates. Munene holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, while his younger brother Mwangi studied electrical and electronics engineering at the University of Nairobi.
When The Nairobian visited their home in Karura Village, Mathira Constituency, we met their mother Esther Nyaguthii who says she doesn’t know why her sons have been arrested. “They are grown-ups and as a mother, I can only do my part and hope they do the right thing as adults,” she said.
Nyaguthii lives in a simple modern stone house with brand new blue roofing sheets. She explains that raising four kids on menial jobs was not easy.
“I have four children. They are all very bright. My son Mwangi scored the highest mark in KCPE at Karura Primary School. His record is yet to be broken,” she revealed.
According to his school records, Mwangi scored 409 marks in KCPE in 2002 and was admitted to Nyeri High School. This is after he repeated the class because he was disappointed with the 397marks he scored the previous year.
“When Mwangi was admitted to Nyeri High, I was worried, because I did not have money for his fee. So I decided to sell our only cow, and then borrow from neighbours and friends,” she said.
When her sons were sent home from school she was too poor to afford bus fare to Nyeri High School, so she walked for 40kms to plead with the school. “It was a struggle, walking for close to six hours, but my boys were very intelligent and I knew I had to give them the best education possible,” the mother of four said.
When Mwangi was in Form Four, she had to tarmac in Eldoret to offset Sh20,000 fee balance. But the school waived the balance because he had performed so well in mock examinations.
The mother who mostly keeps to herself says her sons, Mwangi and Munene, are inseparable despite their two-year age difference. They are also bookworms who rarely leave the house to play with children in the neighbourhood or interact with neighbours.
“They would home and study together, read anything they could find in the house, keeping each other company,” she recalled.
Which is why when Munene was admitted to Nyeri High School in 2000, Mwangi was determined to join him.
“People often asked if my boys are twins because they did everything together, including walking to and from Karura Primary School, which is only a few metres from their home,” she says.
Munene later left Nyeri High for the University of Nairobi, where he studied electrical and electronics engineering, while Mwangi attended Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture Science and Technology to pursue a degree in agricultural engineering.
The two boys were arrested alongside Julius Ndung’u Wainaina who was identified as their cousin, claims which Nyaguthii has refuted.
“I don’t have a nephew by that name, and my sons live in Nairobi not Kiambu. Even when I visited them, I travelled to their homes in Nairobi,” she said.
The last time Mwangi visited was on Mother’s Day this year. “He had come to visit a teacher who was involved in an accident and passed by to see me as well because it was Mother’s Day,” Nyaguthii said.
A close friend describes Munene and Mwangi as polite men with a lot of cash.
“Munene and Mwangi never really held down any job after campus, but they always had money and talked of job opportunities in Uganda where they made regular trips,” says a close family friend.
When I asked Munene about his source of cash, he talked of selling cars, a fact I could not dispute because of the BMWs, Range Rovers and Mercedes Benz cars parked outside their apartment on Thika Road.
“They were casual drinkers who never smoked. Mwangi is really polite and has never fought anyone. He is also very generous with drinks for his friends only but never bails out trouble-makers unless he’ll benefit,” said a source.
According to our source, the two brothers love women and would entertain them in house parties often surrounded by 12 girls.
“I have never seen them in a serious relationship. If they were not in Uganda, they would be partying the night away. Mwangi once had a girlfriend, a really sweet girl but I do not know what happened to her,” the source revealed.
