BULAWAYO - One of Bulawayo’s most wanted robbers, Energy Muzanenhamo, who has been on the run for four years has been brought before the courts.
Magistrate Gladmore Mushove denied Muzanenhamo bail and remanded him in custody up to April 4 for his trial.
It is alleged that between January and May 2008 the accused person, his colleague Corned Gonda and others who are still at large, stole a pickup van from the company warehouse belonging to Whalinger Organisation in South Africa.
The accused then drove the vehicle to Beitbridge Border Post where he smuggled it into Zimbabwe without declaring it to customs officials.
After smuggling the car, Muzanenhamo procured a fake registration book and registration number plates in Bulawayo before the van was recovered by the police after a tip-off.
From August 2008 to April 2009, the accused again smuggled a Madza Rustler, Ford Bantam, Mitsubishi Colt and a Nissan from South Africa on different occasions through Beitbridge Border Post.
Again he did not declare the vehicles to customs officials.Muzanenhamo acquired fake registration books for the stolen vehicles but his luck ran out when one of his clients sold the vehicle to another person and they failed to change ownership of the vehicle as Zimra did not have the vehicle on its data base.
Despite the fact that some of the accused’s colleagues were arrested in 2010, he still pleaded not guilty to the offences.
He told the court that he was not aware of the alleged offences and that his associates wanted to use him as a scapegoat because he never had a hand in any of the listed offences.