Policemen charged with selling guns to poachers

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Policemen charged with selling guns to poachers

6:30 CAT | 12 Dec 2017

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Two police officers are under arrest in Massingir district, in the southern Mozambican province of Gaza, accused of selling guns to poachers, reports Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”.

The men have been in detention since Monday last week, the paper says. It names them as Jose Joao Campira, the head of operations in the Massingir District Police Command, and Beguine Armando, an agent of the Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC), also stationed at the Massingir command.

After these two officers sold the guns to two poachers, the latter were arrested by other policemen, who were apparently more honest. When the poachers were asked where the guns came from, they confessed that they had purchased them from Campira and Armando.

The Gaza provincial police spokesperson, Edgar Juvane, confirmed the arrests to “Mediafax”. He said Campira and Armando have been charged with stealing military property.

“The authorities became aware of the involvement of these two officers from the poachers. They confessed they obtained the guns from the officers”, he said. Campira and Armando are now facing both disciplinary and criminal proceedings. They are being held in the cells of the Massingir District Command.

“Mediafax” also reports that in the northern city of Nampula the police last weekend arrested a ring of foreign citizens of various nationalities who were producing and selling forged documents.

The documents forged included Mozambican identity cards, passports, certificates of labour contracts for foreign workers, simplified licences for economic activities, driving licences, and tax numbers (NUITs).

This was clearly a sophisticated operation, and the forgers had invested in computers, printers, scanners, and photocopiers. They had acquired, or imitated, official stamps from a range of private and public institutions, including bodies of the administration of justice. One of the forgers was a specialist in forging the signatures of senior officials.

The forged documents were being sold to foreigners, mostly from Guinea-Conakry, Congo-Brazzaville, Nigeria and Mali. The forgers’ services were not cheap, and they accumulated large sums of money. When the police swooped they found the forgers in possession of 19,000 US dollars and around two million meticais (equivalent to about 34,000 dollars).

Speaking to reporters, the men arrested denied all the accusations made by the police. Work is now under way to ascertain the losses caused to the Mozambican state by the ring of forgers.

“Mediafax” reports that the police have sent a letter to the Public Prosecutor’s Office asking it to issue a warrant for the arrest of a Mozambican citizen, whose name has not yet been revealed, who is accused of trying to bribe the officers investigating the forgeries.

This man allegedly offered the police officers in charge of the investigation five million meticais to destroy all the evidence against the forgers. The police rejected the bribe.

Source: AIM