HARARE businessman and Zanu PF’s provincial secretary for security, Takesure Mbano, has been arrested for armed robbery after he allegedly robbed a Gokwe miner of seven tonnes of gold ore worth over $9 000. Report by Richard Muponde Senior Court Reporter
Mbano of Faraway Farm in Ruwa and proprietor of Mbano Investments was not formally charged with armed robbery, kidnapping and transporting gold ore without a licence when he appeared before Gokwe provincial magistrate Shepherd Mjanja on Monday.
He was remanded in custody to December 11 and advised to apply to the High Court for bail.
Charges against him are that on October 26, Mbano, in the company of accomplices still at large, went to Musorowaparuka 5 Mine in Chief Njelele’s area owned by Mehluli Sibindi (84).
On arrival, he produced a CZ pistol threatening to shoot the workers.
After chasing away the workers, he located gold ore and went to a nearby village where he forced Richard Chitiyo to load the ore on his lorry.
He allegedly ordered Chitiyo at gunpoint to drive to Doneni Mine where the ore was going to be crushed.
However, Christopher and Adam Sibindi — sons to the complainant — followed the lorry together with a worker Nowell Shambamuto and caught up with it along the way.
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They contacted police at Battlefields. They mounted a roadblock and arrested Mbano and impounded the lorry and its ore. However, his alleged accomplices fled from the scene.
Police took the ore for assay where its value was estimated at $9 900.
Mbano is not new to the courts after he was in September fined $100 (or 90 days in prison) by Bulawayo magistrate Tancy Dube-Chipumha for leaving his CZ pistol unsecured in his bag at a food outlet in the city.
He was arrested last week in Bulawayo together with his friend Tinashe Chikara after they allegedly attacked the MDC-T Matabeleland North secretary for home affairs Moses Moyo.
