Dar es Salaam food vendor arrested over 51kg heroin haul

Dar es Salaam. A food vender, Ms Tatu Nassoro, has been arrested after allegedly being found in possession of 51 kilogrammes and 67 pellets of heroin.

“She looked simple - and there was no way one could think that she was involved in the drug racket. All you could see was that she was selling food outside her house. Little could anybody know that she was actually doing something else,” the Anti-Drugs Unit (ADU) said in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

Ms Nassoro, a resident of Temeke Sandali area, Veterinary Street, was arrested on September 7, 2020 as the ADU sought to dismantle a racket by a suspected drug dealer, Mukrim Michael.

Michael was also in police custody, according to the ADU head Kabaleke Hassan.

He said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that it all started with ADU’s close follow-up on Michael’s r

acket, where several other suspects were arrested in the process.

They include an American national, Anderson Glenn (61), Said Mfaume, Amin Sekibo (25), Salum Jongo, Ms Tatu Nassoro and two more who were currently in Zanzibar.

The American was arrested at Zanzibar’s Abeid Amani Karume International Airport at around 13:00 O’clock on September 2, 2020.

“While being interrogated, he said he got the drugs from a Dar es Salaam resident by the name of Said Mfaume. The police traced him and arrested him. He revealed to the police that he was indeed the one who transported the drugs and handed them to the American national,” said Hassan.

It was after the arrests of the two that police were able to acquire intelligence information that led to the capture of the kingpin, Michael who resides at Dar es Salaam’s Mbezi Beach suburb.

On September 6, police searched Michael’s house and upon interrogating him, he conceded to be in possession of four kilograms of heroin and that he had submitted the consignment to Jongo.

He also revealed that the drugs were routinely being imported via the boundary between Tanzania and Mozambique.

Michael, Mr Hassan said, went with the police to Sekibo’s house at Hekima area, Mbezi Beach where they found out that the drugs had already been shifted from there to Jongo’s place.

On September 7, 2020, police arrested Jongo and while interrogating him, he told them that he had indeed shifted the drugs to another suspect, Nassoro, a resident of Temeke Sandari area, Veterinary Street.

Upon conducting the search at his house, they found him in possession of 51 kilograms and 67 pellets of heroin. “They were wrapped in a plastic bag together with cash amounting to Sh58 million,” he explained.

Michael was also found in possession of four vehicles, one house, two plots at Boko and Bunju areas together with Tsh1 million, 7,370 Mozambican metical (about Tsh236,000) and Ksh400.

The suspects would be arraigned in court on completion of investigations.