Gwanda gold buyer found murdered

By Dereck Nyathi

GWANDA – Mtshabezi residents found popular Gwanda gold buyer Mbonisi Moyo dead in a bushy area next to Mtshabezi River on Friday.

According to a police statement, Moyo, 25, was murdered in a suspected robbery as his body was found with stab wounds, with his head crushed by a stone that was found stained with blood beside his corpse.

Moyo was found with a small bag that was left with only a gold weighing scale and mercury liquid which was covered with a blue cloth.

Police say there were shoe marks on the ground around the dead body that indicate there were about three people wrestling him.

The police also found an okapi knife and two fence poles on the scene that were used to attack Moyo and they said the objects will help them to trace the murderers.

In an interview with the Daily News, his friend Zibusiso Vundla, said he last saw Moyo on Thursday night at Spar Supermarket in Phakama where they had a short conversation.

“I was shocked to hear that my friend has been found dead because when we separated in Phakama the previous night he was going to his house in Senondo and I wonder how he got as far as Mtshabezi River,” Vundla said.

“I believe the people who killed him were aware that he was carrying gold with him because he was coming from the bush where we work. I know he was having a lot of gold and they took all of it.”

Vundla, who is also a gold dealer, said they had arranged to go to Bulawayo the following day to sell their gold.

“I strongly believe the people who killed and robbed him where following him from the bush,” he said.

A similar incident happened last week where another gold miner Petros Sibanda was killed and robbed of 20 grammes of gold valued at about $7 000 when he was coming from bar.

Gwanda is of late experiencing incidents of murders and robberies, a thing that local residents are not used to. The police in Gwanda have intensified patrols in the town particularly around liquor outlets where lots of cash is available in the hands of gold miners.

Late last year, an officer at the Gwanda Registry Offices, Abel Sibindi was attacked in a robbery attempt by two men who are still in police custody.

The suspected robbers are said to have confessed to have come all the way from Masvingo to prey on drunken gold miners who walk around with loads of cash on them. Daily News