Kenya Bus Management Ltd has issued an alert to its customers warning of new tricks being used by criminals to either steal or cause harm to passengers.
In a notice on its Twitter handle, the bus company shared a post by a concerned customer, one Lee Elly, who exposed how the criminals strategically place syringes containing an unknown substance on the back edge of seats, which upon one sitting on injects it into his/her body resulting in a person becoming unconscious.
“The syringe is strategically placed in a way that it directly finds a place in your butt to prick and release the chemical into your system. Once the chemical gets into your system, it makes you unconscious and throws you into a blackout. The chemical acts fast that you wont have time to shout for help. The action is reflex and acts in microseconds,” Elly warns in the post initially posted on a group called Matatu Galore.
After one falls unconscious, the criminals then take advantage and do whatever they want with the victim including taking him/her out of the vehicle pretending to be relatives or accomplices and could then proceed to either steal or sexually assault the victim.
Previously, there have been cases of criminals drugging and robbing passengers as matatu crew look the other way.
According to experts, chemical substances reduce a person’s cognitive capabilities; the ability to recognise who they are, their surrounding areas and who they are interacting with.
One’s defences drop almost immediately, resulting in a lot of cases where people lose their inhibitions, become very open to complete strangers and later lose their consciousness, sometimes for up to three days.
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In worst case scenarios, victims are led to their residences and appear to behave normally raising little suspicions among caretakers and other tenants only to gain consciousness and find their houses empty.
Such cases are, however, more common in drinking joints where chemicals such as halothane, GHB, valium, diazepam, rohypnol and morphine (which is commonly known as mchele) are used to spike drugs resulting in victims being robbed, assaulted or raped.
Here is the notice shared by KBS:
