AIRPORT POLICE AND CUSTOMS OFFICERS SUSPENDED

Several policemen and customs officers have been suspended from duty at Maputo International Airport, and are being questioned in connection with drug trafficking, according to a report in Saturday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”.The General Inspector of the Interior Ministry, Zeferino Zandamela, told the paper there were strong suspicions that these officers were involved in corrupt schemes that allowed people carrying drugs, particularly cocaine, to enter the country without being searched.The corrupt scheme is believed to have been in place for a long time. In exchange for turning a blind eye to drug trafficking, the policemen and customs officers concerned received large sums of money.They were replaced by a new team at the airport several weeks ago. Almost immediately drugs were discovered – particularly in the baggage of passengers who had come from India via Addis Ababa, and took the Ethiopian Airways flight to Maputo. Since July, drugs have been seized at the airport almost every week. The people arrested for drug trafficking have included Mozambicans, Zambians and South Africans.The police believe that cocaine was entering the country by this route regularly, but until the change of the police and customs team, the passengers carrying the drugs had been nodded through without any awkward questions being asked. Drugs carried in suitcases should be easy to detect, since all luggage of disembarking passengers must pass through scanners. Zandamela did not reveal how many policemen and customs officers had been suspended. “The most important thing is to continue the struggle against drug trafficking, rather than ask why it is only know that we are able to detect many cases in a short space of time”, he said. “It’s true that we’ve never had a situation like this before, and now we have to ascertain whether our colleagues were taking bribes to let the drugs through. The most important thing is the work we are doing now to neutralise the traffickers and prevent more drugs from entering the country”.