Apr.23, 2010

Maputo — A joint operation by the Mozambican police and customs authorities led to the detention, on Wednesday morning, in the central city of Chimoio, of a man of Lebanese nationality in possession of 400,000 US dollars in cash.

The man had come from Maputo, and the customs authorities suspect that he was heading for the Machipanda border post where he would have transferred the money illegally to Zimbabwe.

The money was packaged and hidden inside one of the doors of a Mitsubishi Pajero vehicle. Customs told the Maputo daily "Noticias" that they would now look through the entire vehicle to see if any more money is hidden there. Scanners will be used to see inside the entire Pajero.

Customs suspects that the Lebanese, whose name has not been released, is part of a money laundering network.

When he was detained the Lebanese claimed he was only carrying 115,000 dollars.

He said he was working for a company that deals in gold, and was going to Chimoio to make some payments (a superficially plausible story, since gold mining, much of it illegal, does take place near Chimoio).

The Customs Director for Audits, Investigation and Information, Orlando Jose, does not believe this story. "For us, this is a typical case of money laundering", he said. "We became even more suspicious when we found that he was also carrying 14 million meticais (about 418,000 dollars) in cash".

The suspicions of the customs staff were further raised when the Lebanese told them he was carrying such large sums in cash, because Mozambican banks are unable to make payments of this size, and he needed the cash to pay off debts.

In fact, any bank in Chimoio would have been able to lay its hands on 14 million meticais, though obtaining the dollars might have taken a bit longer. In any case, legitimate companies would normally make such large payments by cheque, rather than by stuffing a wad of banknotes inside a door panel.