Dec.10, 2009, 04:00

The Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) has arrested four officers from the Ndola Health Management Team for money laundering.

DEC public relations officer John Nyawali yesterday said the four were suspected to have laundered over K200 million.

“Three accountants and an administrative manager were arrested for various money laundering activities amounting to a total of K285,928,493 of public funds,” Nyawali said.

He named the suspects as Denis Katebe, 37, Kennedy Masela, 36, and Robert Hantebe, 45, all of Ndola.

The four are said to have laundered the money by “not banking user fees and misappropriating housing allowances meant for the Ministry of Health employees in Ndola.”

Nyawali disclosed that the four had been released from police custody on bond and would appear in court soon.

In a related development, a 25-year-old man of Lusaka has been arrested for defrauding a commercial bank of K62 million.

According to Nyawali, Emmanuel Simbeye, a businessman, allegedly defrauded the bank by “transferring the mentioned amount to several accounts held with other banks after being issued with an in house cheque.”

Simbeye has been denied bond and will appear in court soon.

Three Zambians have been arrested in India for drug-related offences in the last one year.

According to a statement by first secretary (press) at the Zambian High Commission in India Bwalya Nondo, the Narcotics Control Bureau Report of 2008, stated that every third of foreigners arrested for drug trafficking in India, was from Africa.

The report, which was quoted by the Times Nation of India cites Nigeria as topping the list with 50 being nabbed last year for peddling in narcotic drugs in India.

The report stated that some Africans who went to India as students or business people were lured into making quick money by mostly Nigerian nationals who use them as fronts in the conveyance of illicit drugs.

The report stated that African drug syndicates were said to be posing a major challenge to drug enforcement in India primarily because of their transitional links.

Nondo warned Zambians, especially women, travelling to India on any business, to avoid making acquaintances of people they did not know well while on their business errands in the Asian sub-continent.

Nondo stated that drug trafficking in India carried a mandatory 10-year prison sentence on conviction.