The four – Lin Ruming (23), Charles Bruce (43), Francis Taivavashe (24) and Ariston Chipenzi (38) were on Tuesday arraigned before Mutare provincial magistrate, Mr Tendai Mahwe for contravening Section 1 (b) (2) of the Customs and Excise Act Chapter 23: 02. They denied the charges and were remanded to February 27, 2018 on $100 bail each.
The quartet was ordered to report at their nearest police stations once every Friday and not to interfere with State witnesses. Mr Fletcher Karombe represented the State. The court heard that on December 15, 2017, Bruce approached Tamiyara Logistics that his consignment be cleared at Forbes Border Post.
The consignment, which belonged to ZimCN Investment was supposed to have been made up of pipes, angle steel, channel steel, jack hammers, steel wire rope, fibre cables, brake motor and helical-lobe compressors. The consignment arrived at the border post in a haulage truck which was being driven by Taivavashe.
“Chipenzi, who is an employee of Tamiyana Logistics handled the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority clearance and was given the release order. The consignment was however, moved to ZIMRA GMS for final clearance which was scheduled for February 1, 2018.
“Police, however received information to the effect that Taivavashe had smuggled goods and a physical examination was then conducted leading to the discovery of the smuggled goods inside the truck’s containers,” said Mr Karombe.
Tirivashe is alleged to have implicated Chipenzi , who then implicated Bruce as the owner of the consignment. Bruce is further alleged to have implicated Ruming, who is said to represent ZimCN, which owns the consignment.
The smuggled goods includes a huge volumes of generators, compressors, electric cable bundles, wheel barrows, roofing sheets, drilling tool boxes, meter boxes and others were worth thousands of dollars. Manica Post
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