Since the '90s, Kamakwa Village in Nyeri County has long been known for all the wrong reasons - being the cradle of tough and notorious criminals who came to attract national interest.
The most recent key dent to the image of Kamakwa was the gruesome murder of Kamakwa Location chief Charles Kimiti Nyuguto on July 2018, an act that was greatly associated to a revamped group of notorious criminals from the area.
According to the Daily Nation, Kimiti was murdered by unknown gunmen who had become aggressively opposed to his agenda to end crime in the area, his death taking place at his own farm where he was fatally shot.
On February 2018, members of the public took the law into their hands and lynched two notorious criminals who had been successful in avoiding the police.
What defines Kamakwa village best in relation to crime is the historical criminal activities that led to brooding of the country’s most wanted criminals; the famous Gerald Wambugu Munyeria alias Wanugu and Anthony Ngugi Kanagi alias Wacucu whose nefarious activities left a legacy of criminal violence that clings to the area up to date like a stubborn stink.
“Whenever you mention Kamakwa, everyone thinks of Wanugu and Wacucu. This tends to make people fear this village and its people.
“The two started their criminal activities in this area between 1993 and 1996. They were able to terrorise the locals without being arrested by the police,” a resident who spoke to Kenyans.co.ke lamented.
Their aliases Wanugu and Wacucu were intended to hide their identities from security officers, a tact that they had succeeded in for many years.
On August 21, 1995, the then police commissioner Shadrack Kiruki made an unprecedented announcement to the public where he named three people as Kenya's most wanted gangsters, 2 being from Kamakwa village.
According to the Daily Nation, this led to the formation of an elite shoot-to-kill squad from the Criminal Investigations Department (now Directorate of Criminal Investigations) on January 1, 1996, that immediately started hunting down Wacucu, Rasta, and Wanugu.
Three days later, the Alfa Romeo squad led by Daniel Seronei got a tip-off from the public that Wacucu and Wanugu were travelling in a car heading to the latter’s rented house in Rongai.
The three were Anthony Ngugi Kanagi alias Wacucu, Gerald Wambugu Munyeria alias Wanugu and their accomplice Bernard Matheri Thuo alias Rasta.
A bounty of Sh100,000 was placed on their heads, something that encouraged the public to volunteer information on the trio’s whereabouts.
A plan devised by Seroney to enlist female police officers to trap the criminals worked to the book as Wacucu was killed a few days on his way to Rongai after a snitch hinted of his whereabouts.
Six months down the line, the squad got another tip that Wanugu was in Nakuru where he was tracked to Kabatini centre revelling with one of his chain of women.
Gunshots rent the air as residents scampered for safety leaving a key element in the notorious squad neutralised.
