Smugglers lose car over $53 goods

Noah Pito Harare Bureau
TWO Ruwa men travelling from Tanzania in a newly-imported car got the shock of their lives last week after a Karoi magistrate had the car forfeited to the State because they had used it to smuggle clothing worth about $53 and some prohibited medicine.

Gabriel Mandombo, 37, and Norman Casian Mavhunure, 52, both of Cranbrook Park in Ruwa, almost broke down in court when regional magistrate Ngoni Nduna passed the sentence last Friday.

For smuggling the clothing items, they were each fined $400 or four months in prison, while for the contraband of the pharmaceuticals they were each fined $300 or three months in jail.

In asking the magistrate to forfeit to the State a Toyota Platz, prosecutor Gerald Dhamusi applied Section 62(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act which gives any court convicting an offender the right to declare as forfeited to the State any weapon or article used in the commission of a crime.

On June 17, the two men drove up to Chirundu Border Post from Dar es Salaam where they had travelled to collect the car.

With Mandombo at the wheel of the Toyota Platz, also registered in his name, the two successfully went through all Zimra and immigration formalities before leaving for Harare.

As they travelled towards Harare along the Harare-Chirundu highway, they were stopped by police manning a roadblock.

On searching the vehicle, police found clothing materials, a T-shirt, two dresses, 12 blouses, two handbags, two skirts and some cotton cramp bandages all valued at $53.44.

Also found in the same vehicle were restricted goods which can only be imported into the country through the use of a permit from the ministry of Health and Child Care.

These included two 150g tubes of clotrimeazole cream, two 100ml travail tubes, three 250g packets of amoxicillin, 100ml of mucolyn, 20 gestid tablets, 50ml tincture of iodine and 100ml of methylated spirits.

Police arrested the duo after they failed to produce a declaration form for the clothing items, while the second charge arose from their failure to produce a permit for the restricted goods.