NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 24 — There was drama at Nairobi’s Central Business District on Sunday when agents from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) raided the Transnational Plaza following what authorities said was a tip-off that internet servers were being moved from the complex.
Nairobi Regional Police Commander James Mugera who led the Sunday afternoon operation told journalists that the exercise was meant to verify the servers that were being moved.
“We are at this building following up on some information we received during the day that there were some servers which were being moved from the seventh floor of this building to an unknown location,” Mugera said.
The police chief said they established that the office was being renovated adding that the owners of the servers — Lamstar Technologies — had explained they were moving to a different location in Thika.
The Nairobi police boss went further to say that the location where the company in question has been hosting the servers had been leased out to another tenant.
“Since we were not aware, in any case, that was information that was time sensitive, we decided to come and find out and establish exactly what it is,” he said.
He pointed out that the owner of the server had informed police that he uses them to serve SACCOs for mobile banking.
Mugera however said that they will confirm the claims once investigations are concluded.
The Nairobi Regional Police Commander noted that the matter was now in the hands of the cybercrime detectives at DCI.
The raid came hours after the DCI said the Venezuelan national arrested for being in possession of poll-related materials is not an employee of Smartmatic International B.V, the firm contracted by the electoral commission to supply election technology.
DCI chief George Kinoti who said police were still holding the materials since identified as stickers for labeling bags meant to carry electronic voter-identification devices, KIEMS kits, however contradicted an earlier statement by the National Police Service indicating the confiscated items had been surrendered to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
Kinoti said their investigations had established that the Venezuelan national identified as Camargo Castellanos was in the country solely for personal business.
He said an individual identified as Abdulahi Abdi Mohamed had contacted Castellanos join his office in Nairobi for work-related activities but not with the IEBC.
“Upon probing the suspect, it emerged that Mr. Camargo did not bear any letter or documentation indicating that he had been invited by IEBC and as such the materials in his possession belonged to Abdulahi Abdi Mohamed,” Kinoti said.
On Sunday, Deputy President William Ruto told off DCI chief George Kinoti over what he described as attempts to sabotage elections in the ongoing spat between IEBC and DCI over the confiscation of election materials.
Ruto said the DCI was fond of making dramatic statements despite little evidence to sustain his allegations in court, something he noted had led to the collapse of multiple cases handled by the agency.
Speaking Sunday during the Kenya Kwanza Alliance campaign rally in Kericho, the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) presidential candidate asked Kinoti to stop meddling with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
He said Kinoti has “no business whatsoever in issues to deal with elections.”
“We want to tell this guy who is fond of theatrics going by the name Kinoti to stop the nonsense. He is a complete failure who dramatizes cases through media reports only for him to fail in court,” he said.
