When cool drink turns into dregs of death

By Mwangi Muiruri

Recently Gerald Karega went to a pub at 6pm and took a number of beers. The wags say that beauty lies in the eyes of the beer-holder, and as time went by all the women in the bar were looking very appealing to him.

So when a woman approached him with the request for a soda he readily obliged. With time, she switched to beer and then Karega lost track of developments.

He woke up in a room behind the bar at noon the following day and discovered he had lost Sh15,000, a mobile phone and other valuables.

"The manager told me I was careless to trust a stranger in a bar, and that I had been drugged," he recalls.

The sleep inducing potions are put into beer or food causing a deep slumber.
Karega is one of the many men — and quite a few women — who daily fall afoul of confidence tricksters who prowl the bars in Kenya’s major towns armed with drugs that they use to put their victims to sleep before robbing them.

These conmen and women are the latter-day version of the criminals who once travelled in long-distance buses armed with snacks and sweets laced with drugs that quickly put their victims to sleep.

Inquiries by Crazy Monday have revealed that the substances mostly used range from hard drugs to sleeping pills, anaesthetics and antidepressants that should only be used to treat mental illness.

Some are so lethal that if administered in excess, or in combination, they can cause death.

In the case of male victims, the sleep-inducing potions are put into beer or food and the unsuspecting victim drifts into a long slumber that gives the predatory women all the time to clean him up. Doctors warn that some these potions are so powerful they can put an adult horse to sleep – and can also be fatal.

Ashamed

A lot of the victims are too ashamed to even talk about what happened to them. Asked whether he ever reported the theft to police, Karega says: "I’m a married man, working and with decent friends. Such publicity is no good."

Karega got off lightly though. In Karatina, Nyeri District, Paul Wanjau was found dead in a lodging room in 2006 after a woman he had taken for the night administered to him the sleep-inducing drugs in excess.

These drugs can be bought from barmaids, sex workers and even over the counter from chemists.
According to his brother, the dead man was last seen in the company of a twilight girl with whom he rented a room.

"He is said to have taken a number of beers with a certain prostitute in the town. She is also said to be behind the racket of selling the sleep-inducing pills as well as administering them to victims before stealing from them," he says.

When these substances are administered, the victim slips into deep sleep and wakes up many hours later minus his cash and valuables.

According to experts, someone who has taken such a drug lies prostrate with a foaming mouth, moans in a forced manner, wets his pants and his eyes roll.

But often women are also victims. Mostly, the women who fall into this trap are either raped or robbed.

In their case chloroform, which affects the central nervous system when inhaled, is used.

It is sprayed on a handkerchief, which is then pressed on the victim’s nose and mouth.

Last year, a woman was found dead in a lodging in River Road. The woman had checked in earlier with a man and they had looked quite familiar with each other. They also looked drunk.

An attendant says that late at night, she heard some moans coming from the room the two had booked like those made by a person being strangled. She became suspicious when she saw the man leave in a hurry.

Under normal circumstances, lodging staff are only supposed to check the rooms when it is time to check out. So even with all her suspicions, she abided by the regulations and did not try to investigate.

When the woman was eventually found dead, police investigations uncovered a handkerchief in the room that contained chloroform fumes. It was also ascertained that she had been raped.

Seduction

It was later established that the woman was a well-known worker at a nearby cafÈ and was in the company of an equally known customer at the cafÈ. The man had plied her with alcohol to win her sexual favours. It appears that once in the room, she resisted his advances and he drugged her.

A barmaid who sought anonymity told Crazy Monday that the chloroform can even be sprayed on clothes and just a hug is enough to put the victim into a deep sleep.

These drugs are easily bought from barmaids, commercial sex workers as well as street families.

They can also be bought over the counter from chemists’ shops. The most commonly used drug is Stilnox, known by its street name mchele due to its resemblance to rice grains.

Doctors say that the immediate first aid for such a case is a sugarless gum or candy in order to increase the flow of saliva and induce temporary relief.

Enquiries among waiters in various bars reveal that potential victims of drugging are identified when they make sexual advances to a commercial sexual worker and are often they subjects of conspiracy between prostitutes and waiters. One of the women who talked to this writer revealed that a man can be betrayed by his very own friends.

Caleb Ouma recalls the day he got his salary and he and his three friends made a round of the bars to celebrate 30 days of hard labour. He says he can only remember seeing the three friends conferring with a woman at a corner of the bar.

Then he woke up late in the night without a penny — and his friends were nowhere to be seen.

"The waiters in the bar told me not to look far for the thieves. I had been right there with them," Ouma says. When he confronted his friends they denied any involvement in the drugging but when he threatened to go to the police, they refunded his Sh20,000.

There are also instances when the prostitute plots to rob you without involving anyone else. This happens might happen in the pub, in a lodging room or — mostly in the case of bachelors — in the man’s own house.

"This is very common in crowded pubs," a barmaid told us. "Always patronise bars where you can create your own space, especially in bars with balconies. Crowded places are risky."

When the drugging is done in a bar, there are many to share the spoils since the security people, some waiters and sometimes even the manager must be involved. In case the victim reports the theft to the police, the waiters and the manager will deny ever seeing you in the pub.

Conspiracy

And if it happens in lodging rooms, there is likely to be a conspiracy between the guard at the gate or the receptionist. This is because at most lodgings, it is the man who is required to surrender the room’s key either to the security guard or the receptionist.

If the woman wants to be the first to leave, the guard is supposed to get clearance from the man.

If you are drugged, and the woman you were with was cleared by the guard to leave without clearance from you, read conspiracy. The first suspect if you cannot recall the face of the woman is the guard, a source who is privy to the drugging racket revealed.

Ben Mwangi says he lost his cash and a phone in a lodging room. After enjoying drinks with a woman he had just met, the two decided to take their friendship to the next level. They hired a room in the lodgings above the bar.

"I woke up to find myself not in the room, but on the pub’s floor," he says. When he tried explaining to the management that he had got drunk in that very bar in the company of a woman and hired a room upstairs, he was treated like a man person or as if he was weak in the head. "They said I was either an idler or even a thief," he says.

The waiter who had served them later whispered to him that he was wasting his time. He was complaining to the very people who had organised the drugging.

"She even confided to me that my phone was sold to the manager at the pub."

According to interviews with men who have been drugged in their own homes, the woman is very thorough. She will steal all the electronics and anything else of value. In this case, the conspirator is a taxi driver somewhere who comes to spirit the goods and the robber away from your house.

That is how it happened to Michael Mugwanja. He says he took a woman he had picked up in a pub to his house.

"I only remember feeling dizzy after just a few moments on the bed. I woke up to find all of my electronics, good clothes and a gas cooker missing. The woman was nowhere to be seen," he says.