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Man smuggles gold worth $2.6m
07/02/2007 22:20 - (SA)
Lusaka - Zambian police have arrested a Zimbabwean man on charges of attempting to smuggle 121kg of gold worth $2.6m, in one of the country's biggest contraband hauls, said his lawyer on Wednesday.
Ernest Moore is accused of forging customs documents to export gold from the southern African state.
He was charged with possessing stolen items, fraud, forgery, attempting to export stolen items and money laundering, court documents showed.
Police, who arrested Moore at Lusaka's airport as he was due to board a flight to the United Arab Emirates, said he transported the gold in cases, but it was not clear where it originally came from.
Moore's lawyer Nellie Mutti said that her client, who appeared in court on Tuesday, but was not asked to plead, was remanded in police custody after he failed to pay more than $238 OOO for his bail.
"The (cash) conditions cannot be met and we have appealed to the high court to review the bail conditions. The decision (by the lower court) is as good as denying someone bail," she said.
Last month Zimbabwe said it had arrested thousands of gold panners in a crackdown on illegal mining which the government says has fuelled rampant smuggling of precious metals to neighbouring countries.
Zimbabwe miners complain that the rate at which they are compelled to sell all their gold to a state firm is not viable.
- Reuters
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