How Pipeline gang uses gay dating site to lure and rob men

By Kamore Maina | 4yrs ago | 3 min read

They are clicking their way to pleasure only for it to end in tears and pain after losing valuables, cash and even their lives. An international gay sex racket set up in Nairobi's Eastlands is the latest pain in the back of expatriates trooping to Kenya and seeking cheap pleasures of life. The sex pests have been luring their victims into their den at Pipeline estate through social media where they promise heaven but deliver hell. Police investigations have revealed that the four men, who are still at large, are part of a wider cartel preying on foreigners and well-to-do locals in search of forbidden love.

The gang members and their victims are said to connect through a popular dating site popular with the gay community. In one instance, one of their victims, a county government employee from Rift Valley, who had visited the house expecting pleasure, lost all his property and his decomposing body was discovered on September 23. With the death of the man, detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations Crime Research Bureau sniffed what has now emerged to be a well-organised transnational sex scheme.

Initially, police were treating the death of the county government staff as a case of sudden death. But the facts failed to add up when the investigators questioned how the man had ended up in the house which had been rented by a different person. It's only after the DCI tracked down the man who rented the house that it emerged that the one-bedroom apartment was a dungeon of crime and extortion.

DCI established that the county employee could have been strangled to death. Although the police are yet to find evidence to collaborate their findings, the investigators believe that the man was lured to the house through a dating site popular among the gay community. Detectives last week raided the house after an American air cabin crew lost over Sh422,000 in the illicit sex den.

Another Greek national was robbed of an unknown amount of cash, a gold-coated ring and watch to the criminals. It is only after the two victims recorded statements with the police that the investigators saw the full picture of activities in the Pipeline house. DCI boss George Kinoti has ordered his officers to crack down on the group.

The airline crew told the police that it all started on August 27 when he arrived into the country on official duty. After checking in at a high-end hotel on Mombasa Road, the man decided to check on a ‘friend‘ whom he had connected with on a dating site for the gay community. He invited the friend to the hotel where they held their first meeting.

The airline crew met the same man the following day for lunch after which he (the foreigner) was invited to dinner at the Pipeline house. He told the police that while at the Pipeline house on August 28, he was ambushed by four armed men who took his cash and valuables amounting to over Sh422,000.

They then threw him out of the house at night. Good Samaritans drove him to Embakasi Police Station where the matter was reported. On September 1, another victim, a Greek tourist, reported to the police station that he had been robbed of cash and valuables amounting to over Sh300,000. The man claimed that he was walking along Old Airport Road when four men attacked him and robbed him. He told police that the criminals, who were armed with knives, injured his left eye.

“It was after we pressed him hard that he opened up. He was reluctant to give information especially because of the circumstances (gay issues)," said an investigator familiar with the matter.

Police spokesman Charles Owino told The Standard the police had intensified crackdown on the gang. Police say the stigma associated with gays has made many victims shy away from reporting such cases to the police.