US Court to Sentence Kenyan Drug Trafficker

A leading Kenyan drugs trafficker is to be sentenced in a US court today, just three months after his brother was handed a 25-year sentence by the same judge.

Ibrahim Akasha admitted to multiple charges of drugs trafficking, obstructing justice, and “conspiring to use and carry machineguns and other destructive devices”, according to the US Justice Department website.

His brother Baktash was sentenced by the New York Southern District court in August.

Both men were arrested in Mombasa in November 2014 following a US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) investigation, after they provided 99kg of heroin and methamphetamine to confidential sources acting on behalf of the DEA.

Both men were then transferred to the US following an extradition request to the Kenyan authorities.

According to a leaked US diplomatic cable on WikiLeaks “The Akasha family long controlled drugs (then mostly hashish, heroin, cannabis) along through Mombasa to Europe, with Kenyan police, judges and politicians all bought or intimidated”.

The family drug business was started by the pair’s father, who was shot dead in Amsterdam in 2000, before being taken over by their older brother, who was also gunned down in Mombasa, in 2002.

Commenting at Baktash’s sentencing in August, Attorney Geoffrey Berman said “Akasha was once one of the world’s most prolific and violet drug traffickers, but today’s significant sentence of 25 years in prison all but guarantees he will never profit from the illicit drug trade again”.