A Kenyan woman was arrested with a kilo of heroin she was trafficking from Mombasa to Malindi.
Detectives intercepted the female, a narcotic distributor operating within and seized a kilogram of narcotics suspected to be heroin.
She had traveled to Mombasa on a narcotic sourcing mission and was on her way back when she was intercepted, police said.
The accused was presented before Malindi law court on October 19 and pleaded not guilty for the offence of trafficking narcotic drugs.
The ruling on bond will be delivered on October 26, 2023, the court ruled.
This comes in the wake of a recent National Drug Survey by National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) indicating widespread abuse of prescription medication.
DCI conducted operations where traditional dealers in hard drug were arrested while in possession of assorted prescription pills pointing to a shortage of heroin.
The report indicates that, subscription for harm reduction clinics where methadone maintenance treatment is used to treat opioid dependence has increased especially at the costal city of Mombasa.
The opioid-dependent takes a daily dose of methadone as a liquid or pill, which reduces withdrawal symptoms and cravings for opioids.
In the report, the medications commonly abused were identified as codeine, dextromethorphan, noscapine, morphine, caffeine, ketamine and papaverine.
The government is now looking at measures to curb the proliferation and availability of the medications in the market.
Police have intensified operations to address the menace.
And police believe the supply of narcotics and especially heroin that is ruining lives in Mombasa comes from one suspect at large.
According to investigators, the drugs also find their way into nightclubs and some hotels where both local and foreign tourists are able to access the drugs.
Some of the drug peddlers are also associated with criminal groups involved in muggings within Kisauni, Bombolulu, Majengo and Likoni areas.
Police believe he is the remaining head of the drug trafficking gang in the area.
According to police, a well-known male drug peddler in Mombasa has managed to smuggle the drugs from Tanzania.
The suspect who resides Kikambala also runs an elaborate money laundering scheme which he uses to launder the drug trafficking proceeds.
Detectives say the peddler has been arrested severally for his involvement in drug trafficking and has been released on cash bail.
He is behind the 92 kilograms of heroin that were seized in September 2017, one of the largest drug consignments to be seized in history.
A kilogram of heroin can be used by hundreds of youths once mixed with cutting agents and hence such a large consignment can be used consistently for months.
