Salad cream ‘smuggler’ gets bail

A 45-YEAR-OLD truck driver appeared in court on Saturday after he was arrested at Beitbridge Border Post while trying to smuggle 21 tonnes of salad cream worth R520 000 from South Africa.

Obvious Muchazivepi of Kuwadzana Phase 3 is being charged of contravening a section of the Customs and Excise Act.

He was not asked to plead when he appeared before Beitbridge Resident magistrate Mr Langton Mukwengi who remanded him to March 1 on $300 bail.

The accused who is employed by Hash Logistics of South Africa was arrested by the Ferret Squad on Thursday night at the last check point when he was about to leave for Harare.

Prosecuting, Mr Oswell Arufandi said the accused arrived at Beitbridge Border Post on February 14 driving a truck towing two trailers. He then connived with a customs clearing agent who is yet to be identified to smuggle the consignment of 2 400 cases of salad cream, using his passport and gate pass only.

Muchazivepi completed immigration and customs formalities without declaring his load and drove to the last exit gate.

He was then stopped for routine compliance checks by the Ferret Squad, made up of police and other security agents.

During the checks Muchazivepi and his clearing agent failed to produce relevant customs documents for the salad cream.

He was asked to drive to the Container Depot (Condep) for physical examination. The customs agent escaped during the physical examination.