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Prosper Dembedza
Herald Correspondent
Four suspected fuel thieves Passmore Tsodzo (49) and his three accomplices have appeared in court on allegations of drilling a hole on the Feruka oil pipeline before siphoning fuel worth thousands of dollars.
Tsodzo, Liberty Munyaradzi (34), Clementine Sikoti (39) and Itai Ndlovu (43) are facing charges of malicious damage to property.
They were remanded in custody to Tuesday for bail application.
The complainant in this case is PetroZim Line (Pvt) Ltd, a subsidary of the National Oil Infrastructure Company.
The court heard that on November 17, Tsodzo, Ndlovu, Munyaradzi, Sikoti and Tawanda Kabasa who is still at large hatched a plan to steal fuel from the Feruka pipeline.
They allegedly went to the 53 km peg along the pipeline, which is near Diggleford Primary School in Marondera, and drilled a hole into the pipeline.
They then installed a valve, siphoned 5000 litres of diesel and loaded them into a Hino truck before driving away.
It is alleged that Munyaradzi was driving the Hino truck, registration number ADE 3831, carrying five 1 000-litre containers.
The truck is registered in Munyaradzi’s name.
Sikoti, Kabasa, Ndlovu and the other accomplices who are yet to be identified were using a Ford Ranger twin cab.
On November 18 at around 00.08 am, a Noczim team detected the leakage and advised their superiors.
The team reacted swiftly to the information and along the way, they saw accused persons in a Ford Ranger (registration AGF 9171) escorting a Hino Truck.
They tried to stop the accused persons but they drove away at high speed.
A report was made, leading to the accused persons’ arrest.
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