2 nabbed over mbanje laced queen cakes

Two Kadoma men were exposed on Friday last week for selling queen cakes laced with mbanje after some juveniles who bought and ate them started behaving strangely in front of their parents.

The parents alerted the police who carried out investigations and discovered that the juveniles had gorged themselves on the dagga-laced cakes.

The police swooped on the suspects and arrested them, as it emerged that they had already sold more of the cakes to many other people in the area.

The two suspects are now assisting police with investigations.

National police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi confirmed the arrests and said police recovered some more cakes that were laced with mbanje from the suspects.

“Police in Kadoma have arrested two people for selling cakes laced with dagga,” he said.

“On 30 December 2016, some juveniles bought queen cakes from a tuckshop in Rimuka, Kadoma, and they started misbehaving in front of their parents.

“Police carried out investigations and managed to recover the cakes laced with dagga.”

It is suspected that the two suspects are part of a gang that deals in mbanje in the area. They are expected to appear in court soon.

Since last year, several suspects have been arrested while either attempting to smuggle mbanje into the country or selling them in some places.

In August, police arrested four suspects at Nyamapanda Border Post while trying to smuggle into the country 2 500 kilogrammes of mbanje.

Police at Nyamapanda Border Post had received information pertaining to drug traffickers involving a freightliner truck.

When the truck arrived at the border, the driver produced a manifesto cargo of purported 30 tonnes of wheat bran.

Police and Zimbabwe Revenue Authority officials searched the truck and recovered 47x 50kg bags (2 350kg) of mbanje stashed among bags of wheat bran.

They arrested the driver who implicated the other three suspects who had crossed the border through an illegal entry point.

In May last year, unknown criminals dumped 550kg of mbanje worth thousands of dollars at Granville Cemetery, believed to have been smuggled into the country.

In January 2013, police in Harare intercepted a Malawi-registered truck carrying about 3 700kg. The Herald