The ManicaPost
The Mozambican police have arrested all the police officers who were on duty at the top security cells, appended to the Maputo City Police Command, when three dangerous criminals escaped recently.
The spokesperson for the General Command of the police, Inacio Dina, told reporters recently that a magistrate has formalised the detention of the group “since it is strongly suspected that some of them facilitated the escape”. Investigations were continuing “to ascertain the degree of participation of each of them”.
Dina did not give the exact date of the escape, or the names of the three escapees. He said that two of them were accused of kidnapping and armed robbery, while the third had been charged with the murder of two policemen.
As for other significant crimes that have occurred in the past week, Dina said that five individuals had been detained, in Maputo and in the northern city of Lichinga, after they were found in possession of counterfeit currency. They were carrying 85 notes of a thousand meticais, all of them forged.
Dina said there has recently been an upsurge in the seizure of counterfeit currency, and those arrested include both Mozambicans and foreign nationals.
Meanwhile, the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) on March 21 announced the arrest of six members of a gang accused of kidnapping a Chinese citizen in Boane district, about 30 kilometres west of Maputo, on February 9 .
The head of the SERNIC public relations department, Leonardo Simbine, told reporters that the police also seized five vehicles used by the gang, one AK–47 assault rifle and one pistol.
“This is a gang that has been operating in Maputo province since 2015”, said Simbine. He declined to name the arrested criminals, or give any further details for fear of disturbing the ongoing investigations. The Chinese victim was released five days after the kidnapping. A ransom was paid, but the amount has not been revealed.–AIM
