http://www.nationaudio.com/News/Dail...ent/story4.htm
Friday December 21, 2001
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WEEKEND MAGAZINE HOME
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Confessions of a bank robber
By JOE OMBUOR
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NEW LEAF: Martin Baiya outside the shack he lives in, and inset. He used to pay a year's rent in advance for five fully furnished houses.
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The slaying of eight gangsters by policemen on March 24 last year at Highridge, Nairobi, stunned the nation. The story hit newspaper headlines, and politicians joined human rights groups in condemning what they termed "summary justice" by trigger-happy police.
But one person who was more stunned by the incident than anyone else. Martin Baiya was watching television when news of the killings came on air. As pictures of the dead suspects came into focus, and he stared at the screen in horror and disbelief. For there on the ground lay his partners in crime.
Baiya had been a robber for nine years. Just the previous evening, he had met with other members of his gang in Mathare valley to plan the Highway "job". They agreed to meet at 7am the following day for the 11am robbery, after which they dispersed.
As he passed through Eastleigh on his way home, Baiya spotted a Somali couple counting money in a shop. He went into the shop, pointed a gun at them and robbed them of Sh100,000. He was so excited about his unexpected find that he decided to celebrate with a drinking spree.
When he woke up the following morning, it was already past 11am. He had missed the job.
Distraught for having missed out, Baiya continued drinking and eating roast meat, trying to console himself.
Suddenly, the television screen in-front of him filled with the bloody images of his accomplices, all dead. It was enough to sober him up. Baiya retired to his room in tears.
Mother's prayers
It was all too much to comprehend. But for a wierd twist of fate, he would have been dead too. He thought of his mother and the numerous times she had pleaded with him to re-organise his life, and cried even more.
Baiya believes that his mother's prayers saved him from the carnage at Highridge.
Eunice Wairimu Kihiu had agonised for years over her first born son's dangerous lifestyle.
"I prayed to God to protect and bring him back to me, alive. I pleaded with him to stop every time he came home, but he would sneak away and go back to the crime world against my counsel," she reminisces.
"Often he came home laden with his ill-gotten money, but I made sure that it was never used in my family. In fact, his brothers and sisters had to drop out of school for lack of fees," says the single mother of seven.
Baiya chips in: "My mother would refuse to eat any food bought with my money. She once took a piece of meat I had bought on my way home and tossed it away. But I was insensitive to all that bitterness and did not care what she thought."
"It has been painful to see such a promising life go to waste," says Wairimu. "Baiya was a brilliant and hard working child who went out of his way to approach Bishop John Njenga for school fees when he was in Form Three when I was unable to raise the money, and that enabled him to study up to university level."
Baiya, who was known as "Mato" by his colleagues, has a bachelor of science degree from the University of Nairobi. One of his dead accomplices, who was known simply as "Odush", held a Bachelor of Arts degree.
"We sometimes wondered why we were squandering our education in crime," says Baiya. He knows that he could have taken a completely different path.
Instead he became a disgrace – a family shame! His entry into crime began with a failed deal involving a Sh30,000 bribe to "speed up" the preparation of a title deed in Murang'a, where Baiya worked as a lands officer.
"I was arrested and charged with obtaining money under false pretences. I won the case after five months, during which I was in remand custody, where I met seasoned swindlers and other criminals."
Back to freedom, and minus a job, Baiya took to selling fake plots using his association with the ministry of lands as a cover.
He was picked up and remanded 18 times in Murang'a and Nairobi, arguing his way out of every case. He graduated from fraud to armed robbery due to his frequent contact with hard core criminals in remand.
His first bank robbery, in Nairobi in 1995, earned him a cut of Sh870,000. "Apart from members of the gang, shares of the haul went to "links" at the bank and policemen," he says.
He used Sh300,000 to buy a second-hand car, which he drove to Mombasa "to have a good time", staying at a luxury beach hotel, where he paid Sh7,000 per day. When he realised that the money was dwindling fast, he rented his first house there.
He was involved in several robberies at the coastal town with gangs based there until he was arrested and charged with robbery with violence – which is a capital offence – for the Nairobi bank robbery.
Seven months later, he walked out of remand custody at Kamiti prison, having successfully argued his case, and into a job as a statistical officer with the World Food Programme in Mombasa.
"I had three guns at the time, which I hired out to criminals, earning as much as Sh200,000 in two weeks, making the Sh93,000 salary I was earning look like a pittance. I resigned after two months."
Back in full-time crime, Baiya was part of a 10-man gang that in 1997 raided a branch of the Barclays Bank in Nairobi of Sh15 million. His cut was Sh900,000.
He returned to Mombasa to enjoy his loot and bought another car, but was arrested when a gang robbed a famous Mombasa businessman known as Kamau. Again, he argued his way to freedom and relocated to Nairobi, where he joined the gang that was killed last year.
New life
Wairimu is happy that her son seems to have changed his ways."I pray that he will maintain his new lifestyle and maybe even start a family because his younger siblings have overtaken him," she says.
Baiya gives his mother a reassuring look. "I'll do more for her and humanity, by the grace of God," he says. He plans to build a rehabilitation centre for street children, complete with a school and medical facilities, with funds which he hopes to raise by walking the 500 kilometres from Nairobi to Mombasa.
Baiya lives in a tiny room made of wood and rusty iron sheets in Nairobi's Huruma Estate given to him by good Samaritans. It is a far cry from his days in crime, considering that he kept five well furnished houses in Mombasa, which was once his operational base.
"I had paid a total of Sh93,600 – a year's rent in advance for each of the houses, which were in Mtwapa, Tudor, Bombolulu, Kyaani and Likoni."
"No robber worth his salt lives in one house. Some have as many as 10 in different towns to boost their personal security," he says.
Robbers, he says, must have money to stay alive.
They change cars often to hide their identity, and Baiya bought and disposed of many in his career.
He also spent a lot of money on clothes. "One has to be smart to avoid looking suspicious."
But even more was spent on keeping police officers who knew him quiet, and on drinks and food. But he did not get involved with women. "Serious robbers have no time for women. There is always a danger of being betrayed."
Unlike many robbers, Baiya did not invest any of the money he got, which, he says, is proof that crime was not in his blood, but for him a transient evil.
Nor did he engage in any other business to cover up his crooked activities. The leader of his gang, for instance, masqueraded as a barber in ordinary life. Baiya says that the notorious "Wanugu" was once a matatu tout on one of the city routes.
The crime world, he says is full of educated and intelligent people. "The number is swelling as more graduates and school leavers fail to find employment in the saturated job market."
Robbers, he says, work in tandem with policemen.
"Many of those in the underworld are serving and ex-service men from the army, the police and the prisons. Those still in service lend out their guns for a fee.
"Police who are assigned crime duties know robbers the way traffic police know matatu drivers. Robbers are their milch cows."
"Have you ever asked yourself why robbers hardly ever survive a shootout? They would rather shoot them dead than arrest them for fear of being exposed in court."
Bar maids also know a lot about the crime world. "These are the people who keep the guns and know lots of secrets," he divulges.
Most hard-core robbers, he says are quiet, gentle people who do not display any incriminating behaviour.
When he was already out of crime and penniless, he was arrested for "loitering with intent to commit a felony" and spent two months at Industrial Area remand prison, only to be acquitted after the officers failed to show up for the case. "Things would have been different if I had had money to bribe them," he says.
The death of his colleagues marked the end of Baiya's life in the underworld. He gave his life to Christ, and went to a pastor of the Faith Evangelical Ministry to the Kilimani Police Station, where he surrendered his gun, an AK 47.
He has owned many other firearms. "Guns are easily obtainable from Somalis at Eastleigh, where an AK 47 goes for about Sh50,000 and a revolver for Sh30,000. But there is always the risk of being killed by the gun runners if one is not accompanied by someone they trust."
Even though he literally begs to keep alive now, Baiya is determined not to have anything to do with his past life. He swears that he will never try to get back any of his property from his five houses in Mombasa.
"I have Jesus instead, and the Bible has became my purse."
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