Merchant kidnapped in Maputo

A liquor dealer was kidnapped by unidentified men on Thursday evening in Maputo, a police spokesman in the Mozambican capital told Lusa on Friday.

“We have a record of the kidnapping of a person who is in the alcohol business. Unfortunately, he has not yet returned to family life,” said Leonel Muchina.

Muchina said the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) and the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) were carrying out searches to find the victim and arrest those responsible for the kidnapping.

The news on the private STV channel this Friday reported that the trader was forcibly pulled out of the car by two armed men who were in the car blocking the road in order to commit a kidnapping.

The report shows one of the victim’s car’s side windows that was smashed by the perpetrators of the kidnapping when they forced the trafficker out of the car.

Earlier this month, Mozambican police arrested two South Africans on suspicion of involvement in an attempted kidnapping of a Mozambican businessman.

Mozambican Prime Minister Adriano Maleyane told parliament in May that the agents who will work in the unit that will deal with kidnappings affecting the country’s main cities have already been selected.

The “already completed first stage” of establishing an anti-kidnapping unit “consists of the selection of agents,” and the next stage will be the specialization of personnel and the support of cooperation partners, he continued.

Then Maleyan said that since 2021, 28 cases of kidnapping have been registered in Mozambique, of which “15 have been fully clarified.”