Pretoria – A tip-off from community members led to the arrest of two suspects whose combi was stopped in Mankweng, Limpopo over the weekend.
Upon searching the vehicle the Hawks members found Seventy Nine (79) master cases of illicit cigarettes with an estimated street value of R800 000.00. The suspects, a 23-year-old Mbuso Polite Nkosi and his Zimbabwean counterpart Alban Mumanyi have already appeared before the Mankweng Magistrate’s Court and were remanded in custody. They will be back in the dock again on 21 September 2015 when they will make a formal bid for bail.
In a separate incident four suspects, Asraf Shaik (26), Nadim Shaik (24), both Indian nationals, Jame Siyayimu (21), a Malawian resident, together with a 30-year-old Johannesburg resident Thamsanqa Dladla were arrested while loading 1 059 master cases of illegal cigarettes worth over R1 million from a combi into a truck along the R36 road to Lydenburg.
The four suspects made a brief appearance in the Tzaneen Magistrate’s Court on Monday and their case was postponed to 17 September 2015 for formal bail application. One of the suspects offered the police R6 000 bribery and will face a further charge of attempting to bribe a police official.
