The Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) on Tuesday 31st December, 2019 disbanded the Flying Squad unit.
In a statement, DCI stated that only the Headquarters Unit based in Nairobi will remain, in a move that will see the unit replaced with a new one called Sting Squad Headquarters (SSH) that will have maximum of 50 officers who will respond to specific cases. The cases include; armed robberies, kidnappings, motor vehicle theft, sale and distribution of contraband and substandard goods.
REORGANIZATION OF THE FLYING SQUAD AND SPECIAL CRIME PREVENTION UNITS
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations wishes to inform the public that after disbanding all the Flying Squad Sub-units within the Country, only the Headquarters Unit based in Nairobi remained. /1
— DCI KENYA (@DCI_Kenya) December 31, 2019
According to DCI, the selected officers will first undertake specialised courses within and outside the country touching on their core areas of operation.
“With effect from today, the Unit has equally been disbanded. This marks the end of the Flying Squad Unit and no officer will present himself or herself to the public as such,” DCI posted on Twitter.
In addition, the Special Crime Prevention Unit (SCPU) has been scaled down to a smaller unit only based in Nairobi and renamed Special Service Unit (SSU).
The Kiambu Road-based institution, revealed that officers deployed in the unit had undergone intense training in and outside the country and had obtained enhanced skills and knowledge aimed at making the Unit more effective.
The two new squads, (SSU) and (SSH), will now be linked directly to the Crime Research & Intelligence Bureau (CRIB) for intelligence driven operations alongside other augmenting Units including Cybercrime, Ballistics, Scenes of Crime, Principal Crime Registrar, Crime Intelligence Unit, Homicide, (DNA, Toxicological, Chemistry and Biology Lab Units), currently being installed in the Ultra-Modern Forensic Laboratory.
“The units will work closely with other State Security Agencies for information and intelligence sharing, among others. Both squads will be on standby 24/7 as needed in critical crime emergencies within the country,” stated DCI.