Chronicle Editor
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter
SOME called it the mother of all crimes.
It was a heist that was as brazen as it was flawlessly executed.
On the afternoon of 3 October, seven men descended on Ecobank’s Parkade Centre branch in Bulawayo, disarmed armed security guards, and walked away with a cool US$4 442 000, an amount believed to be the largest ever stolen in the history of the country.
Carried out in front of gobsmacked onlookers, the heist brought the country to a standstill, as even ordinary citizens turned detective, combing through every frame of the drama, which took place over 109 seconds and was captured on camera.
As 2024 draws to a close, the seven mysterious men who carried out one of the greatest crimes ever executed on Zimbabwean soil are still at large, with law enforcement authorities, including Interpol, still hot on their trail.
A week after that jaw dropping incident, police announced seven men, namely Elijah Vumbunu, David Sawadye, Israel Zulu, Kudakwashe Mudzingwa, Takafa Vumbunu, Paul Chinake and Brian Murape as the suspects in the robbery.
All seven are said to be resident in South Africa, from where they periodically swoop into their native country to carry out their crimes.
None of the suspected armed gang have been arrested so far, and nothing has been recovered since.
While the story of 2024 would be incomplete without mention of the Ecobank heist, this was not the only dramatic incident in a crime ridden 2024. The year saw several incidents spoil the peace and tranquillity that is usually the order of the day, or night, in the City of Kings.
In January, some unknown assailants set the dramatic and sometimes comedic tone that characterised crime in the city this year with a robbery on Heyman Road in Suburbs, making off with US$4 000 that was stashed beneath the bed.
In February, three armed robbers were killed after a shootout with police in Gwanda, Matabeleland South Province, while two cattle rustling suspects were intercepted near Bulawayo while transporting 19 herd of cattle. The three-armed robbers were believed to have been the same men who had left two police officers fighting for their lives after a particularly bloody shootout in Cowdray Park the previous year. They were also linked to two robbery cases involving US$81 800 and R25 000.
In a year in which farmers looked to the heavens in desperate hopes that a few showers might rescue their livestock from an El-Nino-induced drought, cattle rustlers did not make their lives any easier, plundering from herds in Bulawayo and surrounding areas whenever they could.
In February, Jabulani Nkomo, the son of the late Vice-President John Landa Nkomo, lost 42 cattle from his farm in Umguza District to two of his former farm workers who were part of a rustling syndicate.
That same month, Edmore Bibi and Farai Phambukani were not so lucky as they were arrested with 19 cattle loaded into a truck on the Bulawayo-Beitbridge highway.
Another timely intervention took place in August when another cattle rustling racket was busted, a 43-year-old Bhekilizwe Nyathi was arrested and five carcasses of stolen beasts worth US$2 250 were recovered.
In October, nine men found themselves behind bars accused of running a cattle rustling operation that preyed on one farmer particular in the Fort Rixon area. The suspects are alleged to have stolen and skinned 28 cattle after they devised a plan to target the farmer’s herd. After an extensive search, law enforcement authorities apprehended the suspects on October 13.
2024 also saw the crime related problems bedevilling Cowdray Park also come into sharp focus.
Life is a great gift and when it is extinguished too soon, it not only strikes the hearts of the family of the deceased, but the community that surrounds them as well.
This was the feeling in Cowdray Park after Inobubele Mhlanga (23), a student at Bulawayo Polytechnic, was fatally stabbed only moments after getting off a kombi in the suburb. At a swipe of a blade, a young life with enormous potential was plucked before it had a chance to fully bloom.
Her death also highlighted the deep lying problems in Bulawayo’s most populous suburb. Ward 28 Councillor, Ntando Ndlovu, revealed that the level of muggings in his ward has reached unprecedented levels at night and that immediate intervention is needed. The prevalence of muggings in a suburb that still lacks some basic amenities in places has been attributed to a shortage of tower lights in the area, which has seen violent crime thrive in darkness.
While in Bulawayo tower lights are crucial for visibility, particularly at night when people commute, they also leave a worrisome financial hole in the city’s cash-strapped council’s coffers, as they can only be kept on at a cost of US$10 000 per month in every suburb they are employed.
Car hijackings also took centre stage in 2024, with a few residents in Bulawayo losing their vehicles to thieves over the course of the year.
One of the most high profile cases occurred towards the end of the year, as flamboyant socialite Brighton Chipunza found himself in the headlines for the wrong reasons after it emerged that he was suspected of being a serial carjacker.
Chipunza, popularly known as “Dash” on the Bulawayo social scene, is facing two counts of vehicle theft, with the first one being of a car that disappeared from a city car wash last month, while for the second he is accused of nabbing another ride, this one belonging to the well-known businessman, Mr Gift Banda.
Chipunza, who had a reputation as one of the city’s high rollers, will be spending the entire festive season behind bars after he was further remanded in custody to January 9, 2024.
Online Reporter