State agencies have burst a smuggling scheme in which cargo destined for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) export market was diverted to traders in Nairobi’s sprawling Eastleigh business district.
The smugglers had over time been duping government officials at the Mombasa port that they were making exports to a consignee in the DRC allegedly known as Kandama Kasongo Franchoise who later turned out to be fake.
The tricksters ran a cargo dumping syndicate—where inland goods are falsely declared as export goods and thus not subjected to tax—which is a well-orchestrated tax evasion scheme that has also involved collusion with some rogue Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) officials.
When the law enforcement teams, who had been trailing the truck from Mombasa for days and nights, finally pounced on the suspects on Tuesday morning, they impounded a 40-foot container with goods with a tax value of Sh3,528,471.42 being offloaded.
KRA’s investigations reveal that ‘Kandama Kasongo Franchoise’ has, over time imported and dumped a total of nine consignments with a tax implication of Sh21,956,664.81.
But this, the KRA reckons, is only the tip of the iceberg. The taxman and other law enforcement agencies have intercepted several goods falsely declared transit goods.
In September 2023, about 200,000 pieces of Supermatch cigarettes worth Sh4 million meant for export were found in Kapsabet, Nandi County.
The following month, three people were arrested in Shuvumbe in Kakamega County in possession of 5,000 sticks of Supermatch Cigarettes, which were also meant for export.
In November of the same year, 60,000 litres of petroleum products meant for export were discovered at an illegal fuel station in Bukembe, Bungoma County. They were worth Sh3.4 million in taxes.
However, it is in Eastleigh, a vibrant, diverse, and energetic commercial hub, is increasingly turning into a hotbed of cargo dumping, the KRA officials have told the Business Daily.
“Most smuggled goods end up there. Powdered milk was common,” David Yego Commissioner, Investigations and Enforcement.
Investigations into the smuggling scheme revealed that truck drivers alter vehicle registration plates mid-journey within the country and tamper with the electronic seals, which enable real-time monitoring of trucks transporting transit goods via the Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS) used by KRA’s Customs and Border Control officers.
The culprits in this scheme distort the truck’s identity to conceal the diversion of the goods and stay off the monitoring teams at the KRA’s Central Command & Control and Rapid Response Units (RRU) radar.
On March 5, the KRA’s Custom Investigation Section received intelligence about the suspected diversion of cargo cleared under the Single Customs Territory and other transit consignments into the Kenyan Territory. This intelligence was provided by an informer who described a large-scale collusion scheme at the Mombasa port.
Earlier, while assisting the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in investigating the suspected theft of cargo, the Customs team found one of the suspects with a bill of lading from Evergreen Shipping Line. The consignee on the consignment was ‘Kandama Kasongo Francois’ of DR Congo with a 40-foot container said to contain fabric.
At midnight of March 8, 2025, the Customs team received intelligence that one of the transit containers they had been investigating was loaded on truck KBT641G. The consignment was then armed with a RECTS seal number with the driver of the truck indicated as George Wanjala. However, when they tried to call, the phone number could not be reached and had been in use for a while.
The truck was trailed from Mombasa to Konza City, Machakos. It arrived at Malili town at 3.30pm on March 9 where it stayed for three and half hours before proceeding to Kyumbi near Machakos Junction. It stopped at Machakos Junction until 3.13 am on March 10, 2025.
Around this time, the truck’s occupants disarmed the REACTs seal, replaced the vehicle registration plate number KBT 641G, and changed it to another number KBY 548K. The vehicle was driven to Eastleigh near BBS Mall but did not stop. It proceeded to the Kikuyu-Muguga, past Zambezi town, and stopped under a flyover, facing the Nairobi direction.
