The ManicaPost
OVER the past years residents in Mutare have been living at the mercy of cunning Mozambican thieves who were breaking into premises care freely.
The criminals were evasive for they easily escaped back into the neighbouring country soon after robbing unsuspecting residents.
They used the porous border line with Mozambique to sneak into the country and perpetrate their crimes. Using the Cecil Kopje Game Park the thieves took their loot to the other side of the border where they sold it for a song.
Most hit suburbs include Murambi, Greenside, Morningside, Palmerstone, Bodervale and Yeovil.
Armed with bolt cutters and other house breaking equipment, the burglars hit more than 6o families and fled with an assortment of gadgets that include plasma televisions, cell phones, sound audio systems and other electrical gadgets.
Elsewhere in this issue we carry a refreshing story in which a crack team of detectives from Mutare Central district did a splendid job to bring to book three of the criminals who had wreaked havoc in the low-density suburbs.
As burglary cases were piling in the district, law enforcement agents were under pressure to resolve the cases but their efforts yielded nothing as the criminals fled back to Mozambique soon after committing the crimes.
Apart from the fingerprints the thieves left at crime scenes, there were no other clues the detectives had to actually nail the suspects. After months of investigations, the thieves were eventually sold out by a cell phone.
The gang’s leader, Smart Mukome, was eventually tracked down into Mozambique after cops used information from an active WhatsApp account signed to a cell phone which had been stolen from one of the victims.
With the aid of the Mozambican authorities Mukome was brought to Zimbabwe and he revealed how his gang operated.
With the determination to resolve the cases and recover the stolen property, the detectives worked day and night. Their efforts soon paid off as they arrested two other accomplices.
The arrest of these three will go a long way to solve several cases that were hanging at Mutare Central Police Station.
As we celebrate the arrest of these criminals and hope that residents from the affected suburbs will now live peacefully, it is important that authorities put in place preventive measures to curb rising cases of unlawful entry and other related vices.
They say prevention is better than cure.
The police must move quickly and cement relations with communities in crime prevention. In that sense, neighbourhood watch committees and other night patrols must be strengthened and fully resourced.
It is everyone’s hope that now that police officers have been moved off the streets and highways – save for traffic stations – they should concentrate more on fighting these emerging crimes that are tearing communities apart.
As we applaud detectives at Mutare Central district for doing a sterling job, we also want to remind other departments and stations to follow suit and raise the ZRP flag high.
The arrest of these Mozambican criminals has clearly shown that our border lines are porous and something must be done to seal them off from criminal activities.
Smuggling and other related vices are also rampant along the border because of lax security measures.
Let’s protect our space.
