After the last week’s announcement of a reward of $ 1 million USD, for the arrest of two most wanted suspects in the United States, one of them Badru Abdul Aziz Saleh, a 46-year-old Kenyan citizen, has been arrested following a tip-off from the public.
According to a U.S. federal indictment, between August 2018 and May 2019, Saleh and others who were identified during a wildlife trafficking investigation conspired to distribute at least 10 kilograms of heroin to a buyer located in New York.
After several meetings, Saleh and his co-conspirators delivered the first kilogram of heroin to a buyer in Nairobi, Kenya.
According to the indictment, in June 2019, Saleh fled from law enforcement, along with his co-conspirators, before completing the remaining heroin transaction.
He was subsequently arrested by DCI detectives for drug trafficking in Kenya on July 11, 2019 and arraigned at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Law Court the following day.
During Saleh’s judicial process in the country, he was released on Sh200,000 bail but later disappeared and became a fugitive, with a warrant for his arrest subsequently issued.
In June 2021, following a joint investigation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York returned an indictment charging Saleh and other co-conspirators with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin.
The U.S. Department of State, through the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program (TOCRP), offered a REWARD OF UP TO $1 MILLION for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Badru Abul Aziz Saleh for participating in transnational organized crime of narcotics trafficking.
During last week’s joint briefing by the United States Ambassador H.E Eric Kneedler and the Director General DCI George Kinoti, the officials called upon anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Badru Abdul Aziz Saleh and his accomplice Abdi Hussein Ahmed, to volunteer the information to authorities.
Badru is in police custody as efforts to trace his accomplice remains in top gear.
