Police hold three smugglers over 4.6m/- goods

JIMMY LWANGILI

POLICE in Dar es Salaam are holding three people accused of smuggling 4.6m/- contraband goods through the Indian Ocean, using dhows.

Dar es Salaam Special Zone Police Commander Simon Sirro told reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the suspects were arrested last Tuesday during a joint crackdown by the police and Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) at Mbweni area in Kinondoni Municipality.

He said the suspects used the dhow christened, ‘Neema Kwa Wote’ with registration number Z616 to illegally transport 950 gallons of cooking oil from Zanzibar.

“As the patrol team went at Mlingoni area in Bagamoyo District on Saturday last week, arrested another dhow carrying 251 gallons of cooking oil, 41 boxes of tined milk, nine bags of rice and seven bags of sugar, each weighing 50 kilograms,” commander Sirro told reporters, concealing the names of the suspects for investigation purposes.

The suspects, he said, will be arraigned before the court upon completion of the investigation. Meanwhile, Commander Sirro cautioned Dar es Salaam residents on the presence of conmen using the name of Regional Commissioner (RC) Paul Makonda fraudulently.

He said there are people who used RC name to get 3,500 US dollars from a Chinese national he identified as 24-year old Marco Li who works with Group Six International at Mikocheni B in Kinondoni.

Narrating the incident, the RPC said on October 1, 2016 one of the suspect called Mr Li through mobile phone number 0719 340914 , identifying himself as RC Makonda and asked him for 3,500 US dollar as support towards the sponsorship of a student admitted to Manilla University in Philippine.

The Director of the company, Mr Jensen Hung responded to the call, directing Li to take the money to the RC. He reached the RC offices at Ilala Municipality but did not found the impostor.

“He decided to call him through the phone number but the fake RC claimed to be busy, asking the young Li to deposit the money in a bank account...on October 4, Li sent the 7,595,000/- through the Commercial Bank account at Mikocheni Branch,” said Sirro. October 6, Mr Huang asked the fake RC to help him with extension of time to stay in the country and the suspect demanded 7,000 US dollar as fee for the service.

Mr Huang paid 15,260,000/- through ECO bank account. But, on October 25, Mr Huang was called and asked to add 5,000 dollars for completion of the issue at the immigration offices. Mr Huang realised that he was being duped and reported to the police.

“May I caution the visitors and city residents in general to be careful on the presence of these bad people,” said CP Sirro.

In separate incident the Kinondoni Regional Police Commander (RPC) Suzan Kaganda has confirmed that one person died and 22 people have been injured after the bus they have been travelling in from Dodoma to Dar es Salaam caught fire after crashing head on with a lorry along Morogoro Road on Sunday afternoon. The Kimara accident involved the bus with registration number T 990 AFQ and the lorry with number T 534 BYJ.