JOINT teams from the Mozambican customs service, the police and the frontier guards mounted a major operation recently to seize contraband entering the country from Zimbabwe, the Mozambican news agency AIM has said.

The agency said the operation involved 102 men who raided shops, warehouses and homes in Tete and Manica provinces, and set up check points along the main roads.

The main seizures in Manica were 10 tonnes of sugar and 12 tonnes of cement, and in Tete 12 tonnes of sugar and 507 crates of Black Label beer. An unspecified amount of milk, maize flour, potatoes, eggs and building materials was also seized.

Most of this contraband was carried across the porous border on smugglers' heads and backs, avoiding the official border post, and paying no tax or duty.

Stored

The goods are then stored in flimsy stalls, before they are picked up by vehicle for their final destinations elsewhere in the central and northern provinces.

Legitimate businesses have long complained against this sort of racket, whereby goods such as sugar, cement, and beer, smuggled in from Zimbabwe, compete unfairly against locally-produced goods.

The operation hit particularly at Mangueiras, a ring of flimsy houses and stalls near the Machipanda border post in Manica. The customs says that the houses in Man-gueiras in fact function as contraband warehouses.

The joint teams also extended their searches into the mountainous region on the Ma-nica/Zimbabwe border, where smugglers have opened new paths to evade customs control. - Ziana.