Interior minister challenges SERNIC to show dynamism in preventing organized crime

Maputo, 20 Mar (AIM) – Mozambican Interior Minister Paulo Chachine has challenged the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) to be more dynamic in preventing and investigating organized and transnational crime, including the wave of kidnappings in the main cities.

Chachine, who was speaking on Wednesday during the ceremony in which he swore into office new SERNIC heads at central and provincial level, said that the kidnappings have been challenging the authorities’ investigative capacity, and are threatening the country’s economy.

“We want to reiterate our condemnation of these acts, which hold back investment and endanger public order, security and tranquility”, declared Chachine. “We would also like to remind those involved in public disorder that criminal responsibility is individual and non-transferable, and that justice may take time, but it does not fail”.

“It is urgent to adopt more vigorous measures in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism and related crimes, through the scrupulous application of special investigation techniques and other modern mechanisms”, he added.

“These challenges must also be overcome with a committed and audacious SERNIC, based on discipline and free from corruption and related acts”, he added.

He encouraged those new SERNIC heads to make a difference “and put all your knowledge in criminal investigation at the service of the people, in the search for the material truth, exercising your rights if the circumstances require it, which will help stimulate your collaborators to be creative, certain that the results will come.”

Chachine was speaking before Wednesday’s announcement that the latest victim of the kidnap gangs, an Indian shopkeeper abducted in the southern city of Chokwe, has been found dead, in a shallow grave dug in Guija district, on the other side of the Limpopo river.

Seven people have been detained in connection with this kidnapping and murder, and they include two members of the police force.
(AIM)
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