From Washington to Nairobi: How FBI-DCI operations unmask suspects in Kenya

When Salman Subeyr Haji sneaked into Kenya in 2024, law enforcers around the world were looking for him.

This follows a request by the United States of America, which wants to prosecute him in connection with the murder of Mingyuan Huang in the US.

Haji’s fingerprints were found on a stolen car, which was captured in CCTV footage outside a popular retail chain, Costco, in Seattle, where Mingyuan was shot dead.

Prosecutors believe that they have enough evidence to convict Haji for the murder, as well as theft of a Porsche Cayenne, which was stolen from another victim.

Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers arrested Haji on July 12 at Mkuu Court, Komarock Estate in Nairobi.

After fleeing from the US, the suspect settled in Somalia before relatives helped him to sneak into Kenya.

According to court documents in the USA, Haji left the country aboard a Turkish Airlines flight.

“He had been living with a close relative, and he rarely got out of the two-bedroom house. He was shocked when officers raided the home and arrested him. It was through a joint effort with the US authorities,” a police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to address the media, said.

Also known as Salmon Subeyr Haji alias Markell Somo Jefferson, alias Salman Hagi, Haji led a reclusive life. He was able to avoid detection for close to 21 months.

A security guard in the area where he was arrested said that he saw DCI officers around the place last month, but he did not know what they were doing. He declined to give further details on the suspect's arrest.

“I am not allowed to speak to anyone about the matter; my job is simply to open and close the gate. I am required to get detailed information of anyone coming into the court (Mkuu Court),” said the guard, who declined to identify himself.

Haji, 20, who lived in SeaTac, America, is accused of killing Mingyuan Huang, alias Yuam Ming on January 26, 2024, during a robbery attempt. Mingyuan Huang tried to stop him from robbing her sister, Mingyong Huang.

In June 2024, Interpol alerted law enforcement officers across the world to arrest Haji should he enter their jurisdictions.

On June 17, 2024, Director of Public Prosecution Renson Igonga applied for the detention of the murder suspect for 21 days, pending the filing of extradition proceedings against him.

“On the basis of the said indictment, the Interpol, through the NCB Washington, USA, similarly issued a Red Notice No. A-1702/2-2025 dated February 3, 2025, against the respondent,” the application by the DPP read.

Haji was later handed to an FBI team which had helped track down the fugitive.

"He was living with someone who had close ties with his family. When it emerged that he was in the country, the Kenyan and US authorities worked closely, leading to his arrest," a police officer who was involved in the operation said.

The US Attorney’s Office said that the US carjacking task force identified the case against Haji as meriting federal prosecution. He was granted Sh646 million bail, but failed to raise the money. He remains in police custody.

“Separate from the fatal shooting in Tukwila, this defendant is alleged to have used a firearm to steal a car from a woman in Seattle. She made a narrow escape. This defendant needs to be held accountable,” prosecutors told the court.

Court documents in the US, that were seen by Sunday Nation show that Haji committed the crime alongside Ilyiss Abdi, 20, who acted as his getaway driver moments after the fatal shooting.

The two faces charges of murder in the first degree, robbery in the first degree, and attempted robbery in the first degree.

Chloe Ming told the court on August 2 that her mother, Mingyuan Huang, was murdered in public and there was no need to shield the suspect.

Haji’s case is one of the many where a Kenyan fugitives — wanted in the US — are arrested by FBI officers.

According to its operations under a section known as authorities and jurisdictions, US federal laws give the FBI authority to investigate extraterritorial criminal and terrorist activities. However, the FBI can only conduct investigations abroad when invited by the host country. In most cases, international partners gather evidence and make arrests, then extradite suspects to the US.

Kevin Kang’ethe

In another case, Kenyan citizen Kevin Kang’ethe was accused of killing his girlfriend, Margaret Mbitu, in the US in October, 2023.He fled to Kenya, but was arrested in September, 2024 and handed over to FBI officers.

He fled the US to avoid prosecution but on September 2, 2024, FBI special agents, along with a Massachusetts State trooper assigned to FBI Boston’s Violent Crimes Task Force, escorted Kangethe from Nairobi to Logan International Airport.

On November 2, 2023 upon completion of investigations into the death of Mbitu, a Chelsea District Court issued a warrant of arrest against Kangethe. But he had fled from the US on October 31, 2023 after buying a one-way air ticket to Nairobi.

The FBI obtained a federal arrest warrant issued by the United States District Court in Massachusetts on November 3, 2023. Kangethe was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Kenyan authorities arrested him on January 29, 2024 at the request of the United States. Kangethe escaped custody a few days later before Kenyan authorities located and re-arrested him.

The Akasha brothers

Protracted court cases to block extradition ended in 2017 when Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha were bundled into an airplane and taken to the US.

The brothers had been arrested in 2015 together with two other men, Gulam Hussein and Vijaygiri Goswami in a US-led sting operation by FBI officers. They pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply and distribute methamphetamine in America. The Akashas are serving their prison terms in the USA. Baktash was sentenced to 25 years in prison, while Ibrahim got 23 years.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) spent years infiltrating the "Akasha organisation," which it alleges is a major smuggling operation connecting the poppy fields of Afghanistan to the cities of Europe and the United States.

Theft of over Sh300m from US firms

Three Kenyans, Robert Mutua Muli, Amil Hassan Raage and Jeffrey Sila Ndungi were arrested in 2018 during an FBI-led operation in Kenya.

This is after it emerged that some employees in the finance department of Fairfax County — which forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, DC in the United States — received an email they believed to be from the headquarters of Dell Computers in Texas.

Fairfax had a running multimillion-dollar computer supply deal for its schools in the county, and the email indicated it had been written by the Accounts Payables Department of Dell. The email directed Fairfax to reroute its pending payments — which were almost due — to another account in Ohio.

By the time of their arrest, the three had stolen Sh315.4 million. To date, about half of the money has never been recovered. The three were guilty after making plea bargain deals with the courts.

Muli is set to be sentenced next month on October 4, Raage will know his fate on October 11, while Ndungi has already begun his 20-year sentence.

Muli, 59, a Kenyan immigrant from Ohio, Texas, stole most of the money; $2,128,133.83 (Sh212 million), and Raage, 48, who was picked by FBI detectives in Nairobi on May 9, 2019, was found with $949,393.14 (Sh94 million) in his bank accounts.

Ndungi, 33, who was in April last year sentenced to 20 years in prison, managed to steal $76,592.86 (Sh7.6 million) before FBI detectives lured him to fly from Nairobi into a trap in Dallas, Texas. He was arrested on the tarmac at the Los Angeles International Airport as the plane he had boarded waited for clearance to fly to London, from where he would have connected to Nairobi.

Before the US theft, it appears Ndungi, a former University of Nairobi engineering graduate, had not only honed his hacking skills and selling DStv bouquets in Kenya and Nigeria from his house in South B, Nairobi, but he had also made tonnes of money.

So lucrative was the venture that by the time he was 26 years old — just two years after graduating — Ndungi had bought two Cessna planes with the tail numbers 5Y-CCN and 5Y-CCO.

While Ndungi was being sent to prison, detectives had their sights on Muli and Raage, who had apparently tricked their victims into thinking that they were receiving emails from Dell Computers.

Apart from defrauding the Fairfax County Government by tricking officials that payment was being sent for computers to Dell, Muli also conned Vermont County Government of $13,684.63 (Sh1.3 million) and the Detroit County Government of $769,226 (Sh79 million).

In these deals, he tricked his victims by pretending to be from other companies other than Dell Computers, but the mode of operation was similar to what he had used on Fairfax County.

Two advocates of the High Court in Nairobi, Ken Nyaundi and Duncan Okatch, told Sunday Nation that not all cases are extraditable. They said that if a suspect is taken to a country like the US before a decision on the same has made, then they could easily win the cases while abroad.

Nyaundi said that for one to be taken to be extradited, an application should first be made in court, and a decision made.

“If someone is taken to another country, yet a court in Kenya has not made any decision to that effect, that is illegal. It can only be taken as an abduction,” he said.

Nyaundi represented Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu — the only Kenyan who has ever been detained at the US Guantanamo Bay. In 2007 Bajabu was extradited before a court made a decision. As a result, he was released.

Bajabu was captured in February 2007, on suspicion of leading a terrorist bomb-plot in Mombasa County.

“By the time we were in court to oppose his extradition, we were informed that he had already been extradited, and we were late to process the application to stop his move to the US,” Nyaundi said.

Okatch echoed the same sentiments. He said that whenever someone is extradited, the Kenyan courts should make a decision.

“It does not matter the relationship between the two countries; there is no way someone can be extradited without a court making a decision,” he said