BY REX MPHISA
BEITBRIDGE police have nabbed one robber, believed to be part of a dangerous gang of criminals hammering spikes on highways, deflating vehicle tyres to rob travellers.
A firearm is said to have been recovered in a raid at one of the gangsters’ houses when police employed their dog section, the K9 Unit.
Police are also said to have nabbed another suspect, who is part of a gang that allegedly targets solar power installations to steal equipment.
Officer commanding Beitbridge Police District Chief Superintendent Tichaona Nyongo confirmed the arrests and said investigations were ongoing.
“CID [Criminal Investigations Department] is still running around as these are two separate issues: one for (solar) panels, the other for spikes,” he said in an interview.
Acting on a tip-off soon after some spikes were on Wednesday hammered on the Harare-Beitbridge Highway just 15km outside the border town, police immediately intensified their hunt.
They nabbed a suspect, who reportedly led them into arresting two others in the Tshitauze suburb, where a firearm was recovered.
Yesterday, police details with sniffer dogs were also seen at a house in Dulivhadzimo, where they recovered solar panels suspected to have been stolen from the Zezani area in Beitbridge West.
Beitbridge residents applauded the police for their good work, but chastised the government for not giving adequate resources to the police at Zimbabwe’s busiest entry point.
“The police, with minimal resources, have cracked these two puzzles and if they were well resourced, the fight against crime would be tremendous,” a resident, Bright Mateza, said.
Police in Beitbridge have a few vehicles and some of the cars from rural stations are used at the force’s driving school in Bulawayo.
Outreach patrols across the country’s 300-kilometre long border with South Africa, where smuggling and poaching is rife, are far in between.
