Hours after arresting Alice Wamugo Mwangi for allegedly drugging and robbing Matatu Owners Association official Wambugu Kanoru, detectives linked her to three similar cases, including one that ended in the death of quantity surveyor Edgar Mokua.
The pattern is identical in all cases. Each involved a financially comfortable man who was drinking at a bar when a woman approached and asked to join his table. After a few drinks, the men lost consciousness.
Upon waking hours later, they found their mobile phones missing and discovered that money (a cumulative Sh1.7 million) had been transferred from their mobile money wallets to the same phone number – Alice’s.
Matatu Owners Association official Wambugu Kanoru.
Photo credit: Evans Habil | Nation Media Group
Detectives tracked Alice’s phone and established that it had been in the vicinity of those belonging to the three victims on the nights they were drugged.
Police believe that Alice and at least two other individuals form part of a gang that has drugged and robbed several men across the Nairobi metropolitan area.
Last Friday, police in Karatina arrested Alice while investigating Mr Kanoru’s drugging, during which Sh400,000 was transferred from his mobile money wallets to phones belonging to the suspect, and others believed to be her accomplices. Mr Kanoru also lost two mobile phones valued at Sh100,000.
Investigators now believe that Alice is the woman seen on closed-circuit television footage leaving a nightclub with Mokua on July 7, wearing a red dress and a black cardigan.
For nearly a month, Nairobi police had been searching for Alice after Mokua’s lifeless body was discovered on July 8 in Roysambu, and investigators established that Sh800,000 had been transferred from the quantity surveyor’s phone to Alice’s. She subsequently moved a portion of the funds to two other phone numbers operated by individuals whom detectives believe are her accomplices.
Last week, police arrested Richard Gikuhe Mbugua along Kamiti Road after establishing that his vehicle may have been used to transport Mokua’s body to Roysambu. His Toyota Ractis has been detained as investigations continue.
Edgar Mokua (inset), a 53-year-old quantity surveyor who died on July 7, 2026 after spending time at a bar with a woman whom police believe spiked his drink.
Photo credit: Pool
Five days after Mokua’s death, a man in Ruiru reported being drugged at a local bar and Sh500,000 transferred from his phone. Detectives identified the same pattern – money was moved from the victim’s phone to Alice’s before being forwarded to the suspected accomplices.
In Mokua’s case, only one woman approached him. The two visited two different clubs in the Lavington area. Closed-circuit television footage captured the woman, believed to be Alice, speaking with a man and a woman as she and Mokua left one of the establishments. In the other two cases, the victims were in the company of two women.
On Tuesday, Mr Kanoru told the Nation that he had been travelling to Nanyuki but stopped for a drink in Karatina. At the bar, a man who appeared to know him well bought him a drink, and the two sat chatting until around 11.30pm, when two women asked to join them. The men obliged, and within an hour the four appeared to have struck up a friendship, with the women also buying rounds. The group later moved to another bar.
Mr Kanoru said that at around 2am he began feeling dizzy after sipping beer from a can handed to him by one of the women. The last thing he recalls is locking himself inside a guest house room.
He woke at 8am the following morning, went to the dining area for breakfast and encountered one of the women, whose hand he shook. He remembers nothing after the handshake, and came to his senses only around 1pm. He discovered that Sh8,000 in cash from his pocket was missing, along with both his mobile phones.
He later established that Sh400,000 had been transferred from his mobile money wallets.
One of the investigators told the Nation that Alice is also facing trial in Thika for allegedly drugging and robbing another man of money and valuables.
In an affidavit filed at Karatina Law Courts seeking orders to scrutinise mobile money wallets and a bank account, investigators stated that they were continuing to pursue other suspects believed to be part of Alice’s gang. They asked the court for permission to obtain M-Pesa statements belonging to two men believed to be members of the gang that has been targeting patrons at bars.
In court filings dated July 27, investigators said they intended to review Alice’s call logs.
“One suspect has since been arrested, and there is need for further investigations into certain M-Pesa and bank transactions to trace the stolen funds before a charge is preferred against the suspect,” the affidavit reads.
