New criminal tactic worries Nampula residents – Mozambique

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New criminal tactic worries Nampula residents – Mozambique

9:05 CAT | 28 Mar 2017

DW / One of the streets in the city centre where fake moto-taxistas practise their new technique.

Residents of the northern city of Nampula report that thieves are passing as motor taxi drivers in order to commit robberies and even kidnappings. Police say special operations have increased security.

A new crime tactic has been sweeping the capital of Nampula province in northern Mozambique increasing in recent months. Thieves pass themselves off as mototaxi drivers, then assault and rob citizens.

Inhabitants are terrified and accuse the police of inoperative, but the authorities insist they are fighting the criminals.

Vendor Sara Orlando, 32, lives in the Muataunha neighbourhood and was recently robbed by a man driving a motorcycle.

“One day he came to my house and said he wanted to buy cooking oil. When I went inside to get a bottle to put it in, he stole the container with all my merchandise and ran away,” she lamented.

Most dangerous neighbourhoods

In the city of Nampula, residents say the Namicopo, Namutequeliua and Mutauanha neighbourhoods are worst for robberies and attacks, both in the home and on the streets.

Sara says that “motorcycle taxi drivers here in Nampula are getting more and more involved in crime”. The boldness of the criminals is so great that, according to the saleswoman, they “abduct people from their homes and at night return to steal their property”.

Mosambik Motorräder — Motorbikes seized by police during operation against fake mototaxis in Nampula

Concerned about increasing criminal activity, Mutauanha residents are demanding the police take action.

“If they [police officers] are actually working, we haven’t seen them, so we are asking for them to be on the alert with these mototaxis, otherwise the crimes will just go on,” she said.

Alert

Mototaxi driver Victor Ernesto, who works in Nampula, reports that there are people posing as mototaxi drivers and admits that some colleagues have gone into crime rather than earn an honest living.

“As far as money goes, everybody’s got their own ideas, but there are also people of bad faith who lead us on, unaware that there are [criminal] networks, and we are worried. Be especially alert at night, because even the taxi drivers themselves have been forcibly taken from their motorcycles by these miscreants.”

Police say they have reinforcements

Police spokesman Zacarias Nacute admitted to DW Africa that this new type of crime was on the rise but says the corporation had redoubled its efforts to stop robberies and assaults on citizens.

“The Mozambique Police, together with the Municipal Council of the City of Nampula, is continually conducting operations to check on the legality of motorised vehicles,” Nacute said.

During the operations, the police check driving licenses and the type of service provided by the motorcyclist, which, according to Nacute, “are not always people transport, but using motorcycles to carry out robberies in the city”.

Police in Nampula have seized more than 150 motorbikes for lack of documents. Many of them were stolen and found in the possession of people claiming to be mototaxi drivers.

“We always query these motorised vehicles. They can only be recovered through regularisation of documents and presentation of a safety helmet,” he said.

Source: Deutsche Welle