Sonko exploited the system as long as he could. He started by being Shariff Nassir's Youth winger. So when those looking for him for having escaped from prison tried to near him, the power of the mzee repelled them.
He then discovered that civil servants have lots of power but are cowards. He used the Mombasa provincial administration to con people of land and in most cases use the administration to silence the owners.
He targeted the land grabbers who he knew would not stand a scandal. He robbed them dry and always approached them to "help" them. The victims he stole from still unknowingly gave him money to "help" them.
He would cheat them in to grabbing land and then engineer a crisis and the good men run for dear life as he remains behind to use the corrupt land offices to cleanse the land and sell it.
He conned banks using fake title deeds on which he obtained loans and then arranged for fake cases to be filed claiming the land etc.
He learned about kompromat long before the Russians. Joho picked it from him. So many bank managers have videos of themselves participating in homosexual acts. They just had no idea because they had been drugged. I suspect that is the beef between Joho and Uhuru over the son's video.
Gotta go. later