Good morning and welcome to yesterday's newsletter. It is not usual to see officers from Interpol, the international police cooperation agency, on Mozambican streets checking vehicles alongside Mozambican police (see below). And to do so on the streets of the cities of Nampula and Nacala is a bold move. Nampula province has a well-deserved reputation as Mozambique’s crime hotspot. This operation, which is being supported by the provincial authorities as well as the central government, is probably meant to send a message that the government is ready to confront organised crime gangs in their heartland.
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Interior minister Paulo Chachine declined to go into details when asked about the operation, but Zitamar News understands that the aim is to find illegal weapons and stolen cars. A great many cars stolen in South Africa end up in Nampula, where the gangs enjoy protection from law enforcement. This is an industrial-scale criminal enterprise, and while the harm is mostly felt in South Africa, it contributes to an image of Mozambique as a place where criminals can act with impunity, which is bad for business and for foreign cooperation.
