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A KENYAN trio, which was busted at a city lodge by local police for selling prohibited plants in Harare, pleaded guilty in court yesterday.
Catherine Nyokabi Wambugu, Sarah Wangari Njoroge and Daniel Mwatha Ndonga first appeared in court over the weekend charged with the importation of prohibited or restricted goods.
They returned to court yesterday and they pleaded guilty to the charges.
The three are now expected back in court today for sentencing.
The court heard that Louisa Makumbe, the Acting Head of Institute of the Plant Quarantine Services Institute, which is under the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, received information from a reliable source that the three were smuggling prohibited and restricted nursery products into Zimbabwe.
On June 18, Makumbe was advised the trio had landed in Zimbabwe, were staying at a lodge in Hillside and were selling their products at Mwana Dream Park in Eastlea.
The police teamed up with Makumbe, Georgina Mwaramba and Shelter Kazangarare, who are Health Inspectors at the Plant Quarantine Services.
Upon arriving at the office, the team noted the three were busy distributing plant seedlings to their customers.
The team introduced themselves and recovered three bags of various plant species.
The detectives asked the three to produce a permit, or any documents authorising them to deal in imported plant seedlings, and the Kenyans produced expired documents, which were not consistent with their consignment. It led to their arrest and the recovery of the smuggled plant seedlings. This is something that we should cheer for as a nation because it shows that authorities in this country are always alert.
It shows that we have an effective system that can track where such criminal activities are being done and bring the culprits to book.
It also shows the value of cooperation between the people and authorities and if the two parties continue to work together then we can do more as a country to deal with these cartels.
This is a clear cartel and such criminals start with such things like plants, to test the system, and then bring in drugs for sale in this country.
They have been testing the waters but they have realised that what happens in other countries don’t happen in this country.
They now know that we have authorities who are alert and will always pounce and arrest such criminals.
Yes, not every member of our police force is exemplary but that is what it means to be humans, we cannot have a police force that is made up only of men and women who have committed themselves to upholding the law.
It’s not possible and no country in the world can claim to have such a perfect team of police officers.
This is the reason why we should be happy that, at least, the majority of our police members are people who have sworn to uphold the law.
It’s because of such a commitment that they are able to bring down such sophisticated criminals like this Kenyan trio.
Online Reporter