Police hunting for a KCSE candidate who fled examination centre

Police in Mogotio, Baringo County, are hunting for a Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination candidate who disappeared from a centre, leaving a mobile phone, test papers and answers behind.

According to police reports, the student, Kennedy Ruto, from Radat Secondary School, jumped over the school fence to a neighbouring compound on Wednesday during the agriculture paper, after putting on civilian clothes to conceal his school uniform.

Ruto and two other unknown persons who were conversing in low tones scampered in different directions when a detective announced his arrival, leaving behind a mobile phone that contained a replica of the geography and physics papers administered on Tuesday and the agriculture paper that the candidates sat on Wednesday, the police said.

Pursuit

Detectives in the school compound became suspicious and pursued them over the fence.

A manhunt was underway for the suspect and his accomplices.

The incident happened a week after detectives arrested four suspects in connection with examination fraud, following intelligence reports about the sale of examination papers to candidates sitting the KCSE exams.

Detectives attached to the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) launched investigations and arrested the four, who are college students.

The main suspect, Gideon Kibet Tanui, an information technology student at Baringo Technical College, was picked up from his rented room next to the college at 10:30am on March 15 while he was busy sharing English paper two and chemistry paper one to students at Silibwet and Sitoito secondary schools in Molo, via his WhatsApp group with a following of 70 members.

“The suspect, who was dishing out examination papers at Sh500 per paper, was also discovered to be a member of fraudulent examination Telegram groups with more than 17,000 followers,” the police said.

Syndicate

Mr Tanui, whose M-Pesa account had over Sh10,000 at the time of his arrest, according to police reports, was also operating a separate account at KCB Bank’s Kabarnet branch, where he immediately transferred the received cash from his M-Pesa account to avoid reversals.

“In order to conceal his identity, the SIM card he was using was registered using the identification details of one Evans Kiprono. In an operation that involved the DCI social media detectives who posed as a candidate, Tanui engaged them in a hide and seek game for more than a week where he was finally arrested in Kabarnet,” said the police.

The four suspects, who were part of a larger syndicate dubbed “Bailing out” and the “Kalee” group, were arraigned at the Milimani Law Courts on Wednesday.