A vehicle smuggling case involving some officers from law enforcement agencies such as the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) has been postponed after the state said it was not ready.
The suspects allegedly fraudulently acquired exempted number plates from the Office of the President and Cabinet to avoid paying customs duty as well as enabling free passage at tollgates and police roadblocks.
Three of the suspected car smugglers who are on bail appeared before Harare magistrate Stanford Mambanje last Thursday.
Brian Matongo (41), Tinashe Kanda (41) and car dealer Elvis Jieman (28) were, however, remanded out of custody to January 15.
The case is from October 2023 after the arrest of the suspects.
The state alleged that sometime in 2018, the trio allegedly joined a cartel of smugglers of top-of-the-range vehicles from South Africa into Zimbabwe.
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They connived with some personnel from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra), Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara), Central Vehicle Registration (CVR) as well as the CIO to fraudulently register different vehicles into the system of the aforementioned institutions.
On December 12, 2017, the accused persons connived with one Wisdom Ndebele to smuggle a Toyota Fortuner from South Africa into Zimbabwe.
In a bid to benefit from Zimra, Zinara and CVR tax exemptions, licences and toll fees, Kanda allegedly used his connections to obtain a vehicle registration book and a number plate belonging to the Office of the President and Cabinet.
Jieman used the number plate for the smuggled Toyota vehicle.
Due to this misrepresentation, he evaded paying tax, vehicle licence fees as well as toll fees.
The offence came to light when the Office of the President and Cabinet witnessed an upsurge in missing exempted registration plates circulating on the market.
The matter was reported to the police for further investigations, which led to the recovery of the vehicle and the registration plates.
One of the state agents and Vice-President Kembo Mohadi’s aide, Tatenda Dzapasi, was arrested last year for smuggling a vehicle and affixing it with stolen number plates.