Police have arrested a woman and her accomplice for packing sand to sell as wheat flour.
Fatuma Issa was arrested in Madogo, Tana River County, after a trader reported that he had been sold seven bales of sand packaged in packets of a local flour brand.
According to a police report, Kelvin Edward had bought from Issa seven bales of Ajab baking flour at 11,900, only to find out later that the packets were full of sand.
“I was alerted by one of my customers a few hours after I sold them what I thought was flour, I had to open the other packets and that is when I realised I had been conned,” he told police.
The victim said that he opted to go straight to report her to the police instead of confronting her for fear that she would run when alerted.
Also duped were two other traders who had already bought 15 bales of the branded sand.
The police were later dispatched to go and look for Issa, who had since moved to a rented house in Adele, 1.5 kilometres from Madogo town, where she continued her fraudulent activities.
After hours of searching, the suspect was arrested at the rented house while packing sand to take to market.
Her accomplice Tony Mokaya was also arrested and 240 packets of sand packed in the branded packets were recovered.
The two are being held at Madogo Police Station and will appear in court on Tuesday.
