THREE traffic police officers stationed at Nyamandlovu Police Station have been arrested for fraud after they allegedly concealed $5 they had fined a
motorist.
According to a memo seen by NewZimbabwe.com, the trio, Constables Chimombe, Chitakura and Muzofa, were arrested last Thursday.
They had allegedly been deployed to a roadblock along the Bulawayo-Tsholotsho Road on March 10 when they arrested one Edmore Mashini for contravening a section of the traffic Act and pocketed part of the money.
“On 10 March 2017 the three constables were on traffic law enforcement deployment at 36km peg along Bulawayo-Tsholotsho Road. They were issued with Z69J book number 25/17 and ZRP Nyamandlovu deployment register entry 46/17,” read a memo written by officer commanding Lupane district, Superintendent Jadiel Mutepfe, to officer commanding Matabeleland North province.
“At 7.49PM the trio arrested Edmore Mashini who was driving a white Nissan Caravan and charged him with contravening Section 39 of the Road Motor Transportation Act chapter, 13.10 which prohibits mixing goods with passengers and made him to pay a deposit fine of $10,” the memo further said.
It is alleged that Chitakura prepared a receipt without endorsing the fine both in figures and words.
He then allegedly endorsed in ink, in both figures and words, on Mashini’s copy leaving the master copy blank.
Chitakura then endorsed $5 on the master copy thereby committing fraud in terms of Section 136 of the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act.
The matter came to light when Mashini noted that the amount on his receipt was written using a ball point pen instead of a carbonated copy.
“He became suspicious and alerted police in Bulawayo leading to an internal investigations which resulted in the arrest of the three on March 16,” said the memo.
The trio is set to appear in court charged with fraud before going through a police disciplinary hearing.