Jane* who lives in Bondeni woke up at 5 a.m. to go to her farm some time in 2020. It was the rainy season and preparing the land for planting was paramount.

Hard at work, Jane ploughed her land and as the sunrise creeped a few meters from where she was standing, she saw a metal box glistening in the morning sun.

“I thought it might be a dead body, since our area had been rocked by high cases of insecurity. But I gathered courage and went to look inside it,” Jane says.

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To her surprise, the metal box was full of money in denominations of a thousand Kenyan shilling notes.

Priding herself as a follower of Jesus Christ and a staunch Christian, Jane decided to surrender the metal box to her friend, Alex*, who happened to be a police officer at a police station near her home.

To her, taking even a single note from this strange box would be going against her Christian values.

‘He gave me Sh 500 and told me to go home but not mention the incident to anyone. Having done my duty, I went back to the farm,” she recalls.

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Back at the station, Alex applied for leave and silently left Nakuru for his rural home.

It was not until months later that his colleagues grew suspicious of his seemingly unending leave.

‘We were having a conversation about his whereabouts one day, when one officer said he had not seen Alex since a woman came looking for him some months back. Further investigations led us to Jane, who narrated the bizarre occurrence. We later learnt that Alex had resigned from the police service and opened a business upcountry,” narrates one of his colleagues who sought anonymity.

Speaking to Mtaa Wangu, Nakuru East OCPD Martin Wekesa says in such a scenario, police officers are required to receive the money and if no one claims it, they should take the money to court.

Nakuru East OCPD Martin Wekesa.

Photo credit: JOSEPH OPENDA/MTAA WANGU

The court would then order the cash to be put under the consolidated fund.

On whether this scenario hurts the trust between the public and the police, Mr Wekesa says the police service is always keen on upholding integrity, even in such cases.

“The public also works to keep police officers accountable. It would be hard for an officer to get away with such an incident without public outcry,” he adds.

If you were Jane, what would you do with the money?

sanyabret@gmail.com

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Rare case of woman from Bondeni who handed over box of cash to police

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Bret Sanya