Police in Machakos are investigating an attempted robbery at the Delta Petrol Station near Nguluni Market in Matungulu sub-county by five men dressed in police uniforms.
The ‘officers’ gang reportedly came with a person claiming to have been beaten by the staff at the filling station on Friday night, pretending to be doing a follow-up.
They then forced the attendants and the watchman to lie inside the office before tying and locking them inside the men’s washrooms.
According to Timothy Mwangangi Kaloki, a Customer Service attendant, three of the men arrived at around 2 a.m. wearing police uniforms and entered the office where their other colleague was waiting.
He claims the three were accompanied by one individual who appeared to have been beaten.
When they asked the attendant if he was the one who had beaten the man, he denied it. The trio then asked the same question of the security guard and other attendants, who also denied it before being ransacked and locked up in the washrooms.
While still locked up, the workers told Citizen Digital they could hear “a sound of metal hitting the wall as if someone was trying to break into the safe through the wall.”
Another witness Darius Mutunga said he also heard a sound of a motorbike coming to fuel but nobody attended to him.
They would later realize that the men were trying to break into a safe to steal but their attempts were futile.
Confirming the incident via phone, Machakos Police Commander Joseph Ole Napeiyan said a bodaboda rider who had gone to fuel but was not attended to filed a report at Nguluni Police Post and the officers responded and came to the rescue of the workers.
He said nothing was stolen since the robbers did not manage to break into the safe but they had launched a probe into the matter.
Naipeiyan however noted that people have uniforms close to police regalia and that it should not be proof that they are officers.
He added that they had treated the case as an attempted robbery and an inquiry had been opened into the same.
CCTV footage obtained from the management showed how the robbers orchestrated the whole operation as they tried to dig through the wall but could not manage it and later left disappointed.
