Pulpit bandits: How shadowy syndicate is looting Nairobi's houses of worship

A trail of CCTV footage, undercover operations and court confessions expose syndicate targeting Kenya churches.[File, Courtesy]

At 5:43 AM on Sunday, August 2, 2026, as the morning chill hung over the Donholm neighborhood in eastern Nairobi, a lone figure slipped through the gates of a local church. Wearing a dark cap pulled low over his face, blue jeans, and a heavy black jacket, he moved with the practiced calmness of someone who knew the terrain.

Service was hours away, and the sanctuary was quiet. Slipping past early-rising ushers, the man headed straight for the church’s media office. He retrieved a hidden key, unlocked the storage vault, and spent the next eleven minutes methodically packing high-end broadcast equipment into a dark backpack. By 5:54 AM, he walked back into the morning air carrying five professional broadcast cameras and an audio interface card—gear crucial for the church's weekly online broadcast, valued at over Sh2.1 million.

Within two hours, the suspect stepped out of an Uber in the affluent neighborhood of Parklands, entering the residential compound of Ashish Shah, a well-known Nairobi businessman and second-hand electronics dealer specializing in church LED screen installations.

CCTV footage captured at Ashish’s residence shows the suspect, later identified as David Simiyu, dropping the heavy backpack at Ashish’s doorstep. For nearly two hours, Simiyu waited inside Ashish’s parked vehicle until the businessman opened his front door. When Simiyu finally left the premises at 11:34 AM, his backpack was visibly empty.

The Donholm break-in was not an isolated burglary. Barely 20 meters from the Donholm site, the syndicate struck again at the Berean Church along Manyanja Road.

During a Friday night kesha (overnight prayer service), congregants gathered in the main sanctuary. At approximately 10:28 PM, CCTV captured a young man walking into the hall. He took a seat in the back row, bowing his head and mimicking prayer alongside the worshippers.

When the congregation moved downstairs to dedicate a newly acquired power generator, the man made his move. He slipped up to the sixth-floor media control room, where he had previously conducted reconnaissance under the guise of an inquiring visitor.

Intercepted on a staircase by an alert media team member, the intruder claimed he had been sent to retrieve gear for the pastor, giving a fake name. Before the church staff could verify his story, he bolted, dashing across the sixth-floor balcony, leaping onto the roof of an adjacent building, and disappearing into the night with a Sony ZV-E10 camera, a wireless transmitter, and high-capacity battery packs worth Sh 345,000.

"He took advantage of the brief moment everyone was downstairs," said Guintet Axeviaour, Head of Security at Berean Church. "He ran across the rooftops. We lost him that night, but his face was captured clearly on our security cameras."

When police and church security teams began cross-referencing surveillance footage from different break-ins across Nairobi, the same operational fingerprint emerged. The thief on the Berean rooftop was the same man captured carrying the backpack out of the Donholm church: David Simiyu.

Ashish for over two years had been contracted with numerous religious institutions across the country to sell and install large LED display screens, audio rigs, and stage lighting.

This access provided a crucial operational advantage. Ashish’s technical teams had unrestricted access to church sanctuaries and media booths during installations and routine maintenance.

"Ashish installs cameras and sound in many churches in Kenya, so it is easy to trust him," explained a church representative who requested anonymity due to active court proceedings. "He took nearly two years on maintenance contracts with us, but his team was essentially scoping out what to pick next."

Following the Donholm heist, the church's media team bypassed conventional waiting protocols after spotting a social media post by a local DJ who claimed to have tracked his own stolen equipment to Ashish's Parklands house.

Formulating a plan, church representatives contacted the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and orchestrated an undercover sting operation. Posing as prospective buyers looking for commercial broadcast equipment, two representatives entered Ashish's Parklands home, which doubled as a private warehouse.

When the undercover team requested high-end lenses and a Sony broadcast camera, Ashish produced the exact model taken from Donholm.

“A physical inspection showed that the external metallic serial number plate on the camera body had been scraped away and replaced with an altered tag,” he narrated.

To secure immutable physical evidence for prosecution, the team paid Ashish Sh155,000 to purchase back their own stolen equipment before signaling DCI officers waiting outside.

When Ashish was taken into custody, a subsequent search of his primary residence and two separate commercial godowns in Ruaka revealed a massive hoard of secondary electronics.

Detectives recovered truckloads of commercial equipment, including 25 high-end digital cameras, broadcast lenses, digital mixing consoles, industrial power generators, road-crew streetlights, and commercial appliances linked to burglaries at several churches in the city.

Ashish's legal troubles extended beyond church properties. Weeks earlier, he had been linked to a high-profile vehicle break-in involving a popular Nairobi performer, DJ Macdee.

On July 7, 2026, DJ Macdee’s car was broken into in broad daylight while parked ahead of an event. The thief bypassed visible valuables, including a laptop and a cash-filled wallet, to extract a specialised audio console valued at Sh 350,000.

After reporting the incident to Kasarani Police Station, the popular DJ launched a digital appeal. Days later, an associate spotted the exact console listed for sale online for Sh 280,000 by a third-party intermediary.

“I sent a brother who posed as a buyer, arranging a physical inspection at a shop in Parklands operated by Ashish,” he narrated.

Accompanied by undercover officers from Kasarani, the team entered the store and photographed the mixer's serial number while Ashish was present.

When officers returned minutes later with original purchase receipts to effect an arrest, they caught Ashish allegedly attempting to scratch off the serial plate with a hand tool to destroy the physical link.

“Following his initial arrest by Kasarani police, he was released under unclear cash bail circumstances during the night,” Macdee explained and added he was rearrested following public outrage on social media platforms.

Victims who spoke during the investigation voiced frustration over the systemic resilience of second-hand gear syndicates.

"People were sharing stories on Twitter that he is well-connected, that he gets arrested and released the same day," DJ Macdee remarked following his experience at the police station. "He uses young guys to steal and sell things to him for cheap, running a massive warehouse right out of residential areas."

Even as Ashish walked out of Thika Magistrate Court after securing bail on his initial charges, DCI officers were waiting at the court compound perimeter to re-arrest him in connection with a growing stack of open dockets from other precincts across Nairobi, Kiambu, and Nakuru counties.

Audio recordings obtained during the investigation capture Ashish dismissing the allegations, claiming he was unaware the items delivered to his residence were stolen, while simultaneously making contradictory statements about "payback time" regarding disputes with client institutions.

Last year when Simiyu was arraigned at the Milimani Law Courts, he opened a massive can of worms. Under questioning by the magistrate, he confessed to a sprawling crime spree that stretched across multiple counties.

"I stole two cameras and an iPad at a church in Valley Road," Simiyu told the court. "I have stolen in many other churches. I started stealing back in high school. I use the money to take care of my needs."

When pressed on who he was delivering the goods to, Simiyu offered a bizarre defence, blaming "bad spirits" for compelling him to steal, and begged the court for leniency.

Ashish was arrainged in Thika Law Court for handling stolen items and is now out on bond pending the hearing of the criminal case. Meanwhile, Simiyu is also facing various court cases after his proverbial 40 days lapsed.