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Brenda Zinyuke, Court Reporter
A FORMER Bulawayo police officer who is performing community service for possessing dangerous drugs has appeared in court after he was arrested with dagga and unregistered medicines.
Samuel Tambooneyi (30) pleaded not guilty to illegal possession of dagga and unregistered medicines charges when he appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Ms Ulukile Muleya.
The magistrate remanded him out of custody to August 16 for trial on $100 bail.
Prosecuting, Ms Martha Tafa said on July 31 at around 11AM, detectives received information that the ex-cop had dagga and unregistered medicines.
They spotted Tambooneyi in a black Honda CRV vehicle parked along Masotsha Ndlovu Avenue between Fort Street and Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Street.
“They approached him and conducted a search in the vehicle where they discovered dagga in a black and white small bag which was on his lap.
“Further searches were conducted in the car where 11×10 diazepam tablets, 2 sildenafil tablets and100 millilitres of salterpyn syrup were recovered leading to Tambooneyi’s arrest,” Ms Tafa said.
The recovered drugs had an estimated street value of $350.
Last year in December Tambooneyi was arrested for a similar offence with his wife Pride Chaingeni (27), Chisiiwa Nyarai (20), Allen Ngwenya (33) and Zibusiso Sibanda (20) for running a drug cartel that reportedly sold dangerous substances to clients that included school children.
Police recovered about 5kg of dagga, 420x100ml of Adco-Salterpyn Cough Syrup and Bron Cleer Cough Syrup including about 300 Diazepam tablets.
Tambooneyi said he had sourced the “high grade weed (dagga)” from Malawi and got the cough mixtures and tablets from a syndicate based in South Africa.
He was sentenced to perform community service.
Online Reporter