Chinese arrested for bribery

The Mozambican police have arrested a second Chinese citizen in connection with Tuesday’s seizure of 1.3 tonnes of ivory and rhino horns, reports Thursday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”.The first Chinese was arrested at the house in the southern city of Matola where the police discovered 65 rhino horns and 340 elephant tusks, which were being packaged ready to be smuggled out of the country. This was the largest ever haul of illicit wildlife products in Mozambican history, and has a street value of about 1.3 million US dollars.The second Chinese was arrested on Wednesday morning, when he attempted to secure the release of his colleague by offering the Matola police a large bribe.At the police station he claimed that he had been sent by the Chinese embassy to look into the situation of the his detained fellow-countryman. Then he pulled 1.2 million meticais (about 34,700 US dollars) and slapped it on the table as the price for his colleague’s release. But not only did the policeman with whom he was attempting to negotiate reject the bribe – he promptly arrested him and charged him with attempting to bribe a police officer.“The work ahead of us now is to find out where these goods came from and what was their intended destination”, the spokesperson for the Maputo Provincial Police Command, Emidio Mabunda, told “Mediafax”.The police have not released the names of either of the two Chinese now under arrest.