Four highway robbers finally arrested
By Walter Nyamukondiwa
CHINHOYI – Four suspected armed robbers who have been terrorising travellers along the country’s major highways have been arrested leading to the recovery of various items, including the vehicles they were using in the robberies.
The quartet’s names are being withheld to allow police to complete investigations into one of the most organised onslaughts on stranded travellers, especially along the Harare-Chirundu and Harare-Bulawayo roads.
The suspects would offer people lifts before attacking them and stripping them of their clothes and valuable items. One of the victims of the claw hammer attack was still admitted to Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital where his condition was reportedly stable.
District criminal investigations officer (Makonde-Hurungwe-Kariba district) Chief Superintendent Peter Machingura said the arrest and recovery of goods at a house in Glenara in Harare had so far led to the clearing of 13 cases of robbery.
“Working on information we received, we managed to track the suspects to their hideout where we managed to recover various items, including laptops, cellphones and clothes, among others, that people lost during the robbery spree,” he said.
He said the four suspects would pick up people using either a Toyota Altezza or a Toyota Corolla at undesignated pick-up points, especially at Greencroft and Westgate roundabout along the Harare-Chirundu highway.
They would drive to side roads just before or after the Mapinga Great Dyke Pass where they would produce either a knife, claw hammer and a knobkerrie, but police were still investigating the possibility of them using a gun.
“They pounced on desperate travellers at night around 8pm before attacking their victims and ordering them to strip naked and leave their valuable items before driving off leaving behind their naked victims,” he said.
Some of the people who have positively identified their valuables were from as far as Mutare, Bulawayo and Bindura where the group was operating. Detectives working on the information tracked the four to a house in Glenara where the loot which they had shared equally was recovered.
Police have called on people to use public transport to avoid being robbed after the cases escalated from March this year.
