Government detectives have extended their crackdown on contraband sugar among other illicit goods to Mwingi in Kitui County.
The directive to extend the operations to the neighboring county was issued by Machakos County Commissioner, Matilda Sakwa, after a team of Machakos County security team alongside officers from various government agencies seized over 2000 bags of contraband sugar and cooking oil in Matuu, Machakos County on Saturday.
"It is suspected that the sugar is part of that nabbed in Eastleigh recently. As a county security team, we came here together with officers from Kebs, KRA, and anti-counterfeit and nabbed 588 bags of the sugar inside a lorry while several others were in the warehouse amounting to approximately 2,000 bags," Sakwa said.
Sakwa addressed the press during the operations at Matuu market in Yatta Sub County.
She said the consignment belonging to Mt.Kenya Distributors Limited included cooking oil from Tanzania also suspected to be counterfeit.
"We were tipped by a reliable source that the owner of the store had suspected counterfeit sugar whereby security agents from yatta moved swiftly and nabbed the sugar," Sakwa said.
Sakwa said security officers found when some of the bags were being offloaded from a lorry into the warehouse.
She said police had condoned the store and nabbed the two lorries used to ferry the consignment to the market.
The county commissioner said part of a lorry was ferrying the oil from Tanzania.
Sakwa said the security team resolved that Kebs take samples of sugar and oil to their chemists in Nairobi for testing to ascertain if they are safe for human consumption, KRA to ascertain whether the products were paid for.
She said the store had been sealed off under tight security while its owner, a woman, had been arrested to assist in the ongoing investigations.
Sakwa said KRA will ascertain whether the products and their sources in Nairobi are genuine or not.
She said the store's owner has another warehouse in Mwingi.
Sakwa observed that the unpackaged consignment should be checked since one wouldn't know whether it's good or bad by just looking.
"It's important to know the source of the products we consume and that's why traders should trade with genuine businessmen in order to know what kind of products they are buying," she concluded.