Kinondoni Regional Police Commander, Camillius Wambura.
Dar es Salaam. If you want to withdraw large sums of money, think twice before you head for an upmarket centre. Armed gangs riding on motorbikes are increasingly eyeing banks and shopping malls frequented by the well-endowed. They appear to be the malls of choice for the thugs, who have been known to rob their victims at gun-point.
In the past two months, there have been two fatal shooting at a popular mall targeting people who had just withdrawn huge amounts of cash. On Friday last week, a businessman was gunned down by robbers who reportedly took Sh18 million from their victim. The deceased, identified as 44 year-old Adson Cheyo, owned a fast food outlet near the shopping centre. He was coming from the bank when he was attacked.
Sister Cresensia Kapuli, 50, was killed at River Side bus stand along Mandela expressway, where she had stopped for shopping. The nun, according to police reports, had withdrawn the cash from one of the banks at the mall and it appears the motorbike riders had been on her trail all along. The nun’s driver lost his left thumb and a second nun escaped unhurt.
Two weeks ago, a local business woman was robbed of Sh5 million shortly after she withdrew money from one of the banks based in shopping centres. The woman, who did not want to be named, told The Citizen on Sunday that she was attacked as she left her bank after drawing cash for her businesses.
She had gone just a few metres out of the main gate when two people on a motorbike closed in on her and held her at gunpoint, demanding that she give them her purse. She did not put up a fight, choosing instead to do as she was told. She escaped unscathed, but her money was gone.
She told The Citizen on Sunday: “I didn’t tell anyone I was going for the money, and my purse was not showing. I was just like any other woman on the street. It was an inside job. They must have had a source within. That’s the only way they could have got to me.”
The inside job theory is gaining ground, and there is a growing belief that the crimes are carried out by a complex network and the robbers are just acting on information received from insiders the banks or companies the victims have connections with.
Kinondoni Regional Police Commander Camillius Wambura told this paper that they are aware of these concerns but there was little they could do without evidence. He added: “It is not that we are doing nothing. They are complicated crimes and we are doing our investigations. I don’t want to talk about rumours but we have heard of the allegations--even against our officers. But we need proof or tangible tips that we can follow up.”
According to earlier police reports, the motorbike model known as Boxer, known for high speed and stability, appears to be the vehicle of choice for robbers. A Tabata bodaboda (motorbike taxi) operator on a Boxer was last month detained at a police station for a week on suspicion that he was part of the crime network. His phone reportedly had a picture of a person whose face was not visible along with a large sum of money and a pistol. “It was not foreign currency but the red notes of Sh10,000,” he added. “That made it very hard for me to convince them that I had nothing to do with the picture. I got it from a friend via WhatsApp.”He did not want his name published because police are still keeping an eye on him. The police got this information from someone who knows him and had access to his phone, he believes, because the first thing they did upon arresting him was to take his phone.
“One of them rang me posing as a client and asked me to fetch him from a nearby bar,” he recalls.
“It was a trap… they told me I was a hardcore criminal and they had been searching for me, but I proved my innocence and I am now out.”
The Citizen
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