A police officer was reportedly arrested in Zimbabwe after gold worth about $1m vanished from a Plumtree police station in Matabeleland south.
According to the state-owned Chronicle newspaper, the gold weighing 28.5kg had been kept as an exhibit at the station since September 2015 after it was confiscated from a suspect who tried to smuggle it to Botswana in 2015 via the Plumtree border post. .
Police discovered the loot on Wednesday when they were checking for missing rifles.
The suspect had tore the khakhi paper in which the gold was wrapped and stole all of it, leaving the paper in a bucket in the armory, said the report.
The suspect was arrested after he was found with the gold hidden in his vehicle.
A report by the Herald quoted Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba as confirming the incident.
“I can confirm that a police officer has been arrested in connection with the theft of 28.5kg of gold at Plumtree Police Station,” she said.
“The suspect is assisting police with investigations and unfortunately at the moment I can’t give more information as this will jeopardise investigations.”
