Drama as police arrest drug suspect

Dar es Salaam. Pemba Street in Kariakoo, Dar es Salaam, was the scene of drama early yesterday when police cordoned it off it as they searched for a suspected drug dealer.

An estimated 30 law enforcers finally found their way into an apartment and arrested the suspect whom they accused of being in possession of 15 kilogrammes of illicit drugs thought to be heroin.

The incident started when a squad of anti-drug police unit made telephone calls to the owner of the multiple-storey building in which the suspect was thought to reside.

The house owner said she was called by her security personnel who informed her that there were police officers who had come to search one of the apartments rented by a Congolese national.

She said that, after the search, the police called to inform her that one of her tenants, a foreign national, had been found in possession of 15 kilogrammes of drugs suspected to be heroine.

“The police conducted the search from midnight to 5am. Then they call to inform me that my tenant had been arrested with 15 kilogrammes of narcotic drugs,” she said – adding that the suspect was introduced to them as a prospective tenant by housing middlemen.

None in her family knew beforehand that their new tenant was involved the drugs trade. What they knew was that he was selling wigs and weavings at the Kariakoo central market.

One of the neighbours living near the said storeyed house said he saw two police vehicles loaded with policemen parked at the scene, with some police officers surrounding the building, while others were spotted at the suspect’s apartment door.

The Ilala Regional Police Commander Zuberi Chembela confirmed the arrest of the suspected drug lord. But – stressing that he is not the official spokesman – he asked this reported to contact the Dar es Salaam Special Police Zone commander or the Anti-drugs unit at the Ministry of Home Affairs for details of the incident.

Reached for more details, Dar es Salaam Special Police Zone Commander Lazaro Mambosasa said he was attending a meeting.

The director of Drug Control Enforcement Authority, Mr Rodgers Sianga, told The Citizen yesterday that the suspect was arrested by the Anti-Drugs Unit of the police force – and they are the right persons to give the details.

“We were informed on April 20 that the suspect was about to travel outside the country, and we had been following him around. But, unfortunately, our fellow Anti-Drugs Unit of the police force were also shadowing him, finally arresting him. So, find them; they will give you more details,” Siang’a said.

Recently, the Tanzania Airports Police Unit at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) arrested a Latvian national, who was reportedly travelling to Poland with five kilogrammes of narcotics suspected to be heroin.