G4S guards accused of brutal attack at Del Monte’s Kenyan pineapple farm

Content warning: This story contains descriptions of graphic violence.

When Duncan Ndegwa woke up in dense thicket in a rural part of Kenya said to attract hyenas, he believed his attackers had intended to kill him. The last thing he remembered was being beaten and stamped on in a small room, where he thought he would die from the pain.

At about 7pm the evening before, the 55-year-old pump operator had been on his way home after visiting family. He was driving his motorbike along a public road that runs through a pineapple farm owned by the fruit giant Del Monte when he saw security guards chasing suspected thieves.

The vast plantation sits on the border of Murang’a and Kiambu counties, about 40km northeast of Nairobi. It has been the site of numerous allegations of violence and killings by Del Monte’s security guards, first revealed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and the Guardian in June last year.

Tensions with the local community, which is blighted by poverty and unemployment, have run high for years and many groups, mostly of young men, have gone into the farm to steal fruit. The farm’s security operation is now run by the UK-headquartered contractor G4S.

Ndegwa alleges that he was mistaken for a pineapple thief and attacked by a group of G4S guards. He told TBIJ and the Nation that they stripped him of his boots and struck him with batons and sticks: “When I felt overwhelmed by the beating, I started begging them to take me to the police station if indeed I was a pineapple thief.” Instead, he said, they confiscated his motorbike and led him barefoot for several kilometres to a rural house, where the assault continued.

The alleged attack, which is said to have happened in May, is the first known incident of its kind on the farm linked to G4S, which took over security operations after Del Monte fired more than 200 of its guards in March. The overhaul came in response to recommendations from a human rights report that was commissioned by Del Monte in the weeks after TBIJ first revealed the allegations of violence.

In response to these latest allegations, G4S said it was fully cooperating with the police and was committed to working with the local community. It strongly disputed any suggestion that Ndegwa was physically assaulted by its security officers and said he was found to be stealing pineapples with an accomplice.

Del Monte did not respond to TBIJ’s request for comment.

Before G4S took over security operations, Del Monte’s guards had previously been accused of attacking people travelling on public roads through the farm. In 2021, a group coming home from a party were attacked when their minibus broke down. Witnesses said that guards set upon the passengers, leaving them with various injuries. One man sustained a broken leg. “I tried to plead with them,” he told TBIJ. “I told them we were not there to steal pineapples.”

This was one of the many incidents that TBIJ and the Guardian first revealed in 2023. At the time, Del Monte said that it took the allegations “extremely seriously” and that it had “instituted a full and urgent investigation into them”.

When he was apprehended by guards in May, Ndegwa said he tried to explain that he worked at Kakuzi, another large agricultural business in the area.

At one point, Ndegwa says the guards emptied his pockets, taking 2,000 KES (about £12) in cash. He said one took his phone and forced him to give his PIN. The guard then transferred money from Ndegwa’s online account to his own. A bank statement seen by TBIJ shows that at 9.14pm that evening 299 KES (about £1.75) was transferred from Ndegwa’s account to a man confirmed to be a G4S security guard.

After he had been taken to the house, Ndegwa says he pleaded for water and was refused. He was told to forget about his motorbike and said he heard one guard tell another to bring a phone so that Ndegwa could say his last goodbyes. Another said his testicles should be tied with a string. When he turned over to resist, the back of his neck was stamped on and he was dragged to a small dark room. This is where he “knew [he] would die”.

According to a statement given by the guard to Kiambu County police, and seen by TBIJ, he “managed to arrest” Ndegwa, whom he refers to as a suspected thief. In his statement, the guard said that Ndegwa pleaded to be allowed to transfer him money in exchange for letting him go.

The guard said Ndegwa initiated the money transfer by asking for his mobile number, which is required for an online cash transfer. He also said that he handed over Ndegwa to his supervisors and explained that he was one of two men stealing pineapples, the other of whom escaped. He also gave his supervisors the sack of pineapples and Ndegwa’s motorbike, the statement adds. It makes no reference to the physical attacks described by Ndegwa.

A witness statement given by Ndegwa to police on 30 May 2024 recounts his being stopped on the public road by a number of guards who assaulted him and took his motorbike and cash before forcing him to give his PIN to access a money transfer service. The statement, also seen by TBIJ, includes testimony that he awoke in the wilderness the next morning and details his injuries.

Kiambu County police chief Michael Muchiri said that the matter “appears truly grave” but that the area falls under a neighbouring jurisdiction. TBIJ pointed out that the police department handling the case does in fact fall within the county of Kiambu but didn’t receive a response.

A period of relative calm had followed G4S’s takeover of the farm’s security. One young man, who said he had previously been to the farm to steal pineapples, told TBIJ in June: “When the G4S guards first came they never used to beat us up. They would only tell us to leave the farm or chase us away.”

Around May this year, however, things changed. A series of clashes between pineapple thieves and local police spilled out from the Del Monte farm into neighbouring villages, where several innocent bystanders were injured. G4S previously told TBIJ that none of its guards are armed with weapons of any kind, nor do they operate outside the boundaries of the Del Monte farm.

When Ndegwa woke up injured in the wilderness, he called Simon Mutuku, a colleague, to come to his aid. Mutuku confirmed to TBIJ that he went to pick up Ndegwa from a remote area on the border of two farms and was “shocked at his state”.

Irene Otieno, a supervisor at Kakuzi, saw Ndegwa in the immediate aftermath of the alleged attack and helped arrange hospital treatment for him. She confirmed to TBIJ that he was badly beaten. As well as complaining of chest and shoulder pains, he had two fractured fingers and required a splint, hospital records and X-rays showed. His arms were also injured. He was prescribed antibiotics and signed off work for over a month.

G4S did not respond to TBIJ’s requests to account for Ndegwa’s injuries or the bank transfer to a G4S employee.

Ndegwa’s injuries have healed and he is now back at work. No one has yet been held responsible for the alleged attack. “I just want to get my motorbike back,” he told TBIJ. “I was so used to moving around on it and it is not easy asking for transport from people all the time.”