Rumphi CID Malawi police head in illegal immigrants’ syndicate

Hudder Moyo, head of criminal investigations department (CID) in the northern region district of Rumphi, has been implicated in a syndicate in which he demands K300 000 per assignment to aid illegal immigrants into the country.

Rumphi is strategically positioned because it has Nyika Plateau on its west and Lake Malawi on its east.

A source who spoke to Nyasa Times on strict condition of anonymity said most of the illegal immigrants are Ethiopians.

Several times we have reported about illegal immigrants—mostly Ethiopians—entering the country. The district where most of these have been captured is Rumphi.

“He gets K300 000 per assignment,” our source said.

For 20 years now, a syndicate comprising Malawi Police Service (MPS) officers and human traffickers in the northern district of Karonga have been operating with impunity by arranging passage through Malawi of thousands of undocumented persons especially from war-torn Somalia and Ethiopia.

About 500 – 1000 illegal immigrants are aided to enter Malawi per week, according to statistics from both the Police and the Immigration department.

The local syndicate is part of a wider network spanning Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, our sources say.

While the district’s police’s senior cops patted their fellows on the back last week for a job well done in crime reduction last year Rumphi police publicist Victor Khamisa said a lot still needs to be done in terms of curbing the illegal immigrants’ case.

“This is still a challenge but we blame the communities for giving these people a safe haven and passage,” he said.

Nyasa Times sources also said the trafficking will not stop because senior cops are also part of it.

The presence of cops in this trafficking syndicate is a well-known fact yet the Malawi government seem unworried.

Once the syndicate gest word from their counterparts in neighboring Tanzania they inform their Police counterparts manning the checkpoints that they have ‘goods’ that need clearance.

From the Malawi Border at Songwe to Karonga there are several Police checkpoints at Iponga, Kaporo, Rukuru and Mwenilondo among others.

Cash payments of MK200,000 are dished out to Cops who will be manning the checkpoints when the ‘goods’ come.

The ‘goods’ are transported in a three-vehicle convoy that are usually two kilometres apart.

The leading vehicle euphemistically christened the ‘sweeper’ makes additional payments of MK100,000 to the cops at each checkpoint and signals for the vehicle carrying the ‘goods’ that all is well.

Once that is done the cops leave open the barricade and the ‘goods’’ vehicle just speeds through.

This procedure is repeated at each of the remaining five Police checkpoints to Malawi’s administrative capital, Lilongwe.

In April, 2014, a senior Cop based in the northern City of Mzuzu sent a Police Van to Karonga, about 225 KM from Mzuzu, to collect his ‘goods’ which turned out to be 25 undocumented Ethiopians.

The Cop served his time and is out of service.

In 2012,  12  Cops who were fingered as part of the syndicate in Karonga were allegedly internally disciplined and never brought before Courts.

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