On May 22, police officers on patrol along Nairobi’s Dunga Road in South B gunned down three suspected gangsters in a botched robbery. As a result, the detectives nipped in the bud two lineages of robbers who had terrorised Nairobi residents for over four decades.
One of those killed was Leon Shimoli, the son of 1990s notorious gangster Edward Shimoli and the brother of another ruthless robber, Farid Shimoli. Edward was gunned down just a month after his release from Kamiti Maximum Prison in 2007, where he had served a lengthy sentence for robbery with violence.
Farid had also met the same fate at the hands of detectives in Westlands during a bank robbery. This was a family with a gene of crime coursing through their veins. Farid once committed robbery at the Co-operative Bank’s Kayole branch and used the loot to bail out Leon, who had been arrested by police for being in possession of bhang.
On May 22, Leon and his accomplices, who included ‘Rasta’, the rider of a black Boxer motorcycle, had robbed a pedestrian of his Samsung A10 mobile phone at gun point before they fled the scene. The trio then accosted a university student along Dunga Road from whom they snatched a laptop bag, but before fleeing, they were confronted by police who gunned them down after they defied an order to surrender.
A Beretta pistol without a magazine, two mobile phones, a bag containing schoolbooks, a student’s ID and a national ID card were recovered from them.
Jericho residents confessed to seeing Leon and his two accomplices leave the estate on a motorcycle in the morning.
“We saw them leave on a motorcycle only later to be informed that they had been gunned down. Someone who knows him actually rushed to the scene to confirm. He had caused a lot of fear within the estate because he indiscriminately robbed without caring whether you knew him or not,” one resident, who sought anonymity, said.
In school, Leon was accused of defiling his schoolmates and acting truant to the chagrin of his teachers. This would turn out to be a precursor to the thug life that he lived to his death.
Leon took up a gangster’s lifestyle that his notorious father was infamous for and what better tutelage did he need than that of his older brother. Farid, also known as Amigo, was Edward’s first-born son from his first wife, Njeri Madonna, who hailed from Uhuru Estate.
Leon’s mother was Edward’s second wife. Her previous husband was a notorious Shauri Moyo Estate based gangster known as ‘Captain’. Born in 1995, Leon was the third-born of the infamous Edward, who confessed to 99 rapes and a large number of robberies in the 1990s.
Leon attended Rabi Road Primary School in Nairobi’s Eastlands between 2002 and 2009 when he dropped out after Standard Eight, but not before he was accused of several rapes and defilements. He did not proceed to secondary school, but instead took up playing football at Musa Otieno Football Academy, Sports Connect and Jericho All Stars.
Described as a quiet and shy individual who rarely talked to people, Leon lived with his mother in Jericho, but would escape to Ziwani Estate after his escapades.
Those he interacted with in Jericho allege that Leon always carried two guns, one for himself and another to hire out to his accomplices. A gun during a robbery is considered as an individual, this meant that he got a double share of the spoils after any heist they took part in.
His criminal profile shows that he was a jailbird who easily pleaded guilty to possession of bhang and served several short-term sentences to avoid robbery with violence charges.
True to police suspicion, Leon so much believed in witchcraft that he is reported to collect soil and blood from the scene where detectives had shot and killed his accomplices for rituals. He allegedly habitually mixed his bathing water with the blood and soil collected from the scene to supposedly ward off bad luck. His gang of seven, namely Brian Ochango, Ngare, Gilbert aka Gilly, Demes, Shisia Junior and Musa with whom he terrorised Eastlands, have all since been shot dead by police in different robbery incidents.
So notorious was Leon and his accomplices that a week before they were killed, they robbed three taxi drivers within Jericho shopping centre of money and mobile phones in broad daylight before casually walking away. In another incident, Leon ordered a taxi driver to get out of his vehicle near the Baptist Church at Burma market.
However, police on patrol noticed the commotion and confronted them, but he quickly handed his gun to one of his accomplices who escaped into Kaloleni Estate. He was arrested and remanded at Industrial Area Prison for some time.
At one time, the youthful gangster and his accomplices, who elicited similar fear as his father, reportedly confronted Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission (IEBC) clerks who were registering voters at Jericho social hall and robbed them in broad daylight.
Interestingly, every time police laid an ambush, Leon would mysteriously disappear. Once, police laid an ambush at his mother’s house in Jericho. He was in the house, but when officers conducted the raid at about 10pm, his mother informed them that he had just left.
This was after he and his gang waylaid, shot and then robbed an elderly neighbour of Sh70,000 near the Jericho AIC church. His gang’s activities forced the football federation to cancel matches played at Jericho grounds due to insecurity after several people were robbed of mobile phones, laptops and money at Camp Toyoyo.
One of his neighbours was shot dead by police in a mistaken identity because they bore physical similarities. Following the incident, Leon relocated to his hideout in Ziwani from where he operated and only secretly visited his mother at night.
