Potatoe smugglers in hot soup
Pini Bothoko | Wednesday November 8, 2017 13:56
On their ongoing raids, the police managed to discover a syndicate of potato smugglers into the country involving restaurants owners, food suppliers and truck drivers.
In an interview with Mmegi, the Botswana Police Service’s (BPS) director of crime intelligence, Nunu Lesetedi confirmed to have arrested two Bangladeshi men, six Zimbabwean truck drivers and three Batswana who are food suppliers linked to the matter.
He said they arrested the two Bangladeshi businessmen in possession of bags of potatoes and onions at the Trade World warehouse in Gaborone suspected to have been smuggled into the country.
“We caught them red handed offloading the potatoes from a truck. We have established that the businessmen have partnered with truck drivers who purchase and transport potatoes from South Africa into the country illegally,” Lesetedi said.
He stated that the said businessmen also have a partnership with local suppliers who will then supply big supermarkets.
“All of them, including supermarkets face an offence of smuggling potatoes into the country for profit making. We have discovered that six Zimbabwean truck drivers and two local suppliers are involved in this syndicate, but investigations into the matter are still ongoing,” Lesetedi said.
He said they have traced them and located some restaurants in Mochudi and Pilane that have benefited and found them in possession of the said potatoes.
He said the importation of potatoes was banned from May to date, hence wondering how they found their way into the country.
Meanwhile, the police revealed that they are investigating a case in which four Batswana men were arrested in possession of two illegal guns on Monday at the African Mall.
The police said the two illegal pistols were alleged to have been organised to be used in a scheduled armed robbery that was supposed to take place somewhere in Tlokweng.
“Following a tip-off, we managed to arrest the four men, Omphile Kesitilwe (34), Justin Dipatane (27), Oageng Molebatsi (32) and Kondwane Chatsami (27) at African Mall. Kesitilwe and Dipatane are well known armed robbers who are currently on bail for an armed robbery offence they committed back in July in Ramotswa.
We received a tip- off that the quartet had gathered there discussing their scheduled armed robbery that was planned to take place that day at Tlokweng village,” Lesetedi said.
Lesetedi raised a concern over alarming cases of armed robberies in Gaborone and the surrounding areas involving people on bail for similar offences.
“It is of a great concern that we arrest people, take them to court and they are released on bail to commit yet other similar offences.
We suspect that they might have partnered with foreigners, especially from South Africa who smuggle guns into the country because in some cases they (foreigners) are also involved in those armed robbery incidents,” Lesetedi said.