Orato World Media captures rare, exclusive interview with Nairobi’s infamous Pirates’ gang leader

For Immediate Release

May 24, 2021

Nairobi, Kenya – Through its unique approach to investigative journalism, Orato World Media captured an exclusive interview this month with the infamous former leader of the brutal Pirates gang in Nairobi, Kenya.In the shocking story, Anthony Mugendi shares detailed accounts of the brutal crimes the gang committed, collaborating with police and bankers, before the gang was targeted for mass elimination by extrajudicial killings. Journalist David Bett, a Kenya resident, delivered the tell-tale account – the third
story to date he has published with the global media organization. Bett has also written revealing first-person stories about illegal logging and the HIV medicine shortage in Kenya.

“It was not an easy affair to meet him,” Bett recalls, “His security comes first. So, before I pitched the story, I had pursued him for like a month or so.” Bett was vetted and required to comply with a variety of rules. He was not allowed to take a phone, a watch, or even wear glasses to the meeting. “I had to beg them to accept me at their den,” Bett said. “I later realized that I was the most endangered person in the whole story. This is because I am dealing with people that are being targeted by the police, who can come in anytime and spray bullets on us. I was with people who can turn on me at any moment. The surrounding is also infested by other gangs who can attack me on my way in or out of the ghetto.”

Bett has received an overwhelming response to his work.Mugendi’s account is stark in its transparency about the horrific nature of the crimes he and his “boys” committed against people in and around the Mathare slum. He goes on to share his attempt to reform after police executed approximately 300 of the gang’s 400 members. As of the story publication, the Pirates numbered only 20 remaining members, with the rest dead or missing.

Mugendi and the remaining members took up farming, garbage collection, and setup a library for children in the hopes of starting a new life, giving back to the communities they brutalized, and evading authorities. “Truth does not discriminate. Through investigative journalism and in the words of the interview subjects, we will reclaim the trust that Journalism once enjoyed by only publishing ‘true stories from real people’”.

Stories like this one are available for syndication.

Contact administrator Yamila Batalla at admin@orato.world for more information.

Orato World Media, Inc. provides state of the art journalistic and technical support for recording and sharing first-person, verified, factual, eyewitness accounts of world events and experiences to reduce the
human divide through knowledge, understanding, and truth. Orato World Media, Inc. invites journalists to claim or pitch stories at https://orato.world.