Mozambican authorities are working to locate and notify the presumed owners, from South Africa, of some of the 99 vehicles seized as stolen, during the "Makure-2" operation, that ended in Maputo and the adjoining city of Matola last week, reports Friday's issue of the daily paper "Noticias".
The operation was jointly carried out by the Mozambican and the South African police forces, the customs services, and the Attorney-General's Office.
A source in the team charged with issuing the notifications told reporters that the idea is to have the South African owners travel to Maputo bringing all the necessary evidence of their ownership of the vehicle, and proof that they had reported the theft.
The Mozambican owners have started presenting their papers, either to claim that the vehicles are genuinely theirs or that they had been stolen from them.
The source said that after hearing the claimants, the cases will be handed over to the court to take the final decision. If the vehicle is not claimed by any other owner, or the claimant fails to produce enough evidence, the car will be returned to whoever was using it when it was seized.
To the astonishment of some observers, the police have announced that the cars will be "temporarily" returned to whoever was driving them when they were seized. Thus stolen goods are being returned to the people believed to be the thieves.
The police explain that returning the vehicles to the users after a fixed deadline, which was not revealed, is a "temporary measure", only to prevent them from deteriorating while investigations continue.
This is an admission that the police cannot protect cars that are in their custody. For in the few weeks that the vehicles would be in a police car park, the only "degradation" the cars could conceivably suffer would be the theft of headlights, wing mirrors and other removable parts.
Fonte: AIM
