Seventy Kenyans are being held in prisons across India and two others in Nepal over drug trafficking offences, according to the Kenya High Commission in New Delhi, which has raised concern over the growing number of cases involving vulnerable citizens lured into criminal syndicates.

The embassy says new arrests are reported every month, mostly involving unemployed individuals who were tricked with false promises of jobs abroad, only to end up in foreign jails under strict anti-narcotics laws.

The mission revealed that the detainees, aged between their early twenties and 60 years, were recruited by traffickers operating in Kenya, with most drug consignments picked in Addis Ababa for delivery to India.

“The stories on how they were recruited read the same across the jails,” the commission stated.

A diplomatic team from Kenya’s mission in New Delhi toured jails in India, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka to verify the number of Kenyans in custody.

They found helpless citizens, some of whom had travelled in secret and lacked any form of support or contact back home.

According to the diplomats, the legal process in India is slow and harsh, with some Kenyans still in remand more than a year after arrest, awaiting trial. If found guilty, they face sentences of at least 20 years in prison with heavy fines.

One of the victims, Simon Karanja, was approached by a trafficker in a church compound after praying for a job.

“The contact person promised to process for him all the necessary travel documents for work for a short period in India,” a diplomat said. Karanja was flown to Addis Ababa, given drug capsules to swallow, and later arrested on arrival at Cochin airport.

Phillip Njoroge, an IT graduate, was recruited by a friend and offered Sh100,000 to deliver a hidden consignment in his bag to India. His bag was flagged at Cochin International Airport and he was arrested.

Kenya’s High Commissioner to India, Peter Munyiri, said there is no prisoner exchange agreement between Kenya and India, which makes it difficult to repatriate detainees. “But in the meanwhile, as a mission, our role is to visit the victims… give them moral support and encourage them,” he said.

In April, customs officials at Mumbai airport arrested 43-year-old Emily Kanini after she arrived from Nairobi with 1,789 grams of cocaine valued at $2.1 million. She said a woman in Nairobi named Millicent had promised her Sh100,000 for the job.

Separately, Margaret Nduta, who was convicted of drug trafficking in Vietnam, was facing execution on March 16 before Kenya’s diplomatic intervention postponed the sentence.

The embassy noted that apart from drug cases, Kenyans are also facing charges related to rape, visa overstay and smuggling, which also attract strict penalties and little room for legal recourse. The mission said some detainees had reached out seeking help with legal representation or delays in their cases.