South Africans jailed in Mozambique for allegedly smuggling stolen vehicles

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South Africans jailed in Mozambique for allegedly smuggling stolen vehicles

1:35 CAT | 05 Jul 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Rádio Moçambique]

Four South Africans are being held by the Police of the Republic of Mozambique on suspicion of smuggling stolen vehicles into Mozambican territory.

The individuals were arrested in flagrante delicto on Monday night on the border between Mozambique and South Africa, and are incarcerated in a police station in Matutuíne district, Maputo province.

They were apprehended in possession of two light vehicles lacking documents and a refrigerated truck with forged documents and licence plates, and are believed to belong to two gangs dedicated to this type of crime.

Police spokesman at Maputo provincial command, Joarce Martins, said that those accused were working with Mozambican citizens yet to be identified, and that the corporation was working to apprehend two other gang members who fled the scene of the crime.

“They are citizens of South African nationality with accomplices somewhere here in Mozambique,” Jairoce said.

“We are currently making arrangements for the individuals to appear in court and for us to find the other members of the gang who are on the run. It is an operation that we carry out in order to discourage these practices, which have been recurrent. South African individuals steal vehicles and place them in Mozambique. They have their cronies here who resell the vehicles,” he said, quoted by Radio Mozambique.

Speaking about the situation on the border between the two countries, Jairoce said that there is nothing jeopardising public tranquillity on the Mozambican side.

“From the Mozambican side we continue with some tranquillity,” Jairoce said. “And what we have been doing, in addition to the appeals to the public, is to try to detect as early as possible anything that might cause agitation here.”

Source: MozNews