Online Reporter
Moreblessing Ncube, [email protected]
A BURNSIDE mansion turned into a crime scene after a 37-year-old man allegedly smashed his way inside, helped himself to top-shelf whiskey, before looting a hunting revolver with 20 bullets to go!
Mbuso Dube (37) appeared in the Bulawayo Magistrates’ Court before Beverley Madzikatire , this week, facing a theft charge that reads more like a Hollywood heist script.
He’s been remanded in custody to 27 May, as the court prepares to crack open a case that links a quiet Burnside burglary to a gun-blazing Plumtree robbery.
According to Prosecutor Sehliselo Khumalo, the bold break-in took place on 21 May 2022, when Dube allegedly smashed a glass door at the luxury Burnside home of Piers Edward Peter Taylor, a prominent safari operator and director of Vakatsha Safaris.
Once inside, Dube made a beeline for the master bedroom where he forced open a locked gun cabinet, helping himself to a Dan Wesson revolver, 20 rounds of ammunition and six bottles of fine whiskey, before vanishing into the night.
But his joyride didn’t last long.
Fast forward to 17 August 2022, and Dube’s luck ran out in Plumtree, where he used the firearm in an armed robbery, ultimately leading to his arrest and the recovery of the weapon.
The stolen gun was traced back to Taylor, who confirmed it was missing from the Burnside break-in — a case already under investigation by CID Hillside.
Taylor told the court he was in Harare at the time of the incident and only found out about the break-in through a call
from his son. The security fence had been cut, and the French door separating the sitting room from the bedrooms smashed — a calculated job.
“It was clear they knew what they were looking for,” Taylor told the court. “The staff member was out drinking that night, so the house was empty. It was perfect timing.”
While Dube has already been convicted of armed robbery and illegal firearm possession, the break-in case is still underway, with the court hearing that no fingerprints linking him directly to the Burnside house were lifted during forensic analysis.
In a desperate twist, Dube allegedly told detectives from CID Homicide that the firearm originally belonged to a man who died three months after Dube’s Plumtree arrest, a claim investigators haven’t been able to verify.
The court was also told that the total value of the stolen loot was pegged at US$420, but only US$300 worth, mostly the firearm, was recovered. The fate of the whiskey remains a mystery.
