Mozambique: Police find another house equipped for holding kidnap victims

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Mozambique: Police find another house equipped for holding kidnap victims

3:26 CAT | 02 Aug 2024

Photo: O País

The Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) of Mozambique announced this Friday that it had found a house on the outskirts of Maputo equipped as a place of captivity for a kidnap victim.

“This property would have been rented for 25,000 meticais [€360] per month, for three months, at a cost of 75,000 meticais [€1,080] in advance payments. The house had been prepared to be used as a place of hiding here in the Djonasse neighbourhood of Matola-Rio,” Sernic spokesman Hilário Lole said in Maputo.

Chains, nails and hammers, among other equipment, were found inside the house, which Sernic suspects were to be used to restrain the next victim. A suspect was arrested for renting the house.

“It was also possible to seize a GPS-type device in the suspects’ possession, which was to be applied to the victims’ vehicles (…) and track the victims’ movements to the point where they could commit the kidnapping crimes,” the Sernic spokesperson explained.

The suspect was arrested in the province of Manica and, in addition to having rented the house, he claims to have been responsible for renting another house used as a prison, which was also dismantled by SERNIC. False documents allegedly used to rent the houses were found on him.

According to SERNIC, the mastermind in this case is a national citizen who is currently outside the country, but an international arrest warrant has already been issued.

Around 150 businessmen have been kidnapped in Mozambique in the last 12 years and a hundred have left the country out of fear, according to figures released last week by the Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique (CTA), which argues that it is time for the government to say “enough”.

“There are already 150. More than a hundred have left the country,” president of the CTA’s security and private protection department Pedro Baltazar told a press conference in Maputo. “We are not talking about those who held administrative or management positions; if we count them there are many more. We are talking about those who held the capital, who were the shareholders of the companies.”
“After about 12 years since the first kidnapping, we believe that there is enough time for the government to put more pragmatic pressure on itself to put an end to this evil. Therefore, we reiterate the need for the government to accept the measures proposed by the private sector,” Baltazar said, alleging a cost (from kidnapping) of “billions of dollars” to the economy and employment in Mozambique.

The Mozambican police had registered a total of 185 cases of kidnapping up to March of this year, and at least 288 people had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in this type of crime since 2011, the Minister of the Interior announced.

President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi acknowledged in July that combating kidnapping crimes is still a challenge in the country and asked the police to bring the “masterminds” to book. “Bring at least one mastermind, you will see that the narrative will change, because the masterminds are very fearful, we just need to take a certain measure and they will run away,” the president said.

Source: O País