Police hunt for producers of fake brews in Eldoret house
Residents of Outspan in Eldoret were outraged yesterday by the discovery of a house where suspected illicit brew dealers were allegedly mixing ethanol with water and selling it as alcohol.
According to residents, the bungalow whose ownership is the subject of police investigation could have been producing the concoction and supplying it to wine and spirit outlets and bars in Eldoret for a year.
Residents said vehicles have been entering the compound and exiting after being loaded with sealed boxes.
Police officers who raided the house protected by a perimeter wall discovered water storage tanks, ethanol containers, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) stamps, and Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) stamp duty stickers, as well as bottles, seals, and boxes for packaging.
Inside the house, chemicals suspected to be chlorine, alcohol flavors, cotton materials, and a liquid suspected to be alcohol produced from the mixture were discovered.
Hundreds of bottles branded Smart Vodka, Best Classic Gin, and Silver Star, among others, were discovered.
Residents led by Stephen Muindi said the concoction could be the lethal alcohol believed to be consumed by youth and university students around Moi University’s Annex Campus.
Muindi, who is a cleric, said an estate security committee was alarmed by suspicious activities in the compound of the raided house.
“On Sunday night, we spotted a lorry offloading suspicious goods and curious neighbors came to ask security guards manning the home about the goods that were being offloaded but they declined to allow us to view the contents and the lorry left in a high speed but we blocked the road using our vehicles and informed the police,” Muindi said.
He asked DCI officers who also processed the scene to unravel the ownership of the house.
Acting Uasin Gishu County Police Commander Patrick Wekesa said a multiagency team is looking for the owner of the house and the suspects who fled the operation.
“We are working with KRA and KEBS to establish the authenticity of the stickers discovered in the house,” the police boss said.
He added: “The owner of the building will not hide for long. We will soon get his identity through various government agencies and property ownership information.”
