Two men have been arrested in Harare for making illegal liquor, according to the City’s Metro Police.
Metro Police chief Wayne le Roux said officers patrolling Oscar Mpetha Road, in Kuyasa, on Friday January 5, at 10.50pm, noticed a vehicle riding suspiciously low with only two occupants.
When they pulled the vehicle over, they found eight 25-litre sealed containers of what they thought were chemicals.
The driver told the officers the containers held water, but they took the vehicle to the Harare police station and then went with the two men to a house in Harare where they found almost 300 full 750ml bottles of gin, vodka and whiskey; one 20-litre and 17 25-litre containers of chemicals; nine large canvas bags of empty liquor bottles; three full boxes and one large bag of new gin-bottle caps, a bag of stick-on labels for Gordon’s and Old Buck gin, 50 folded cardboard boxes for gin bottles and R2750 in cash.
Both men were detained at Harare police station on charges of dealing in liquor without a licence and manufacturing and bottling alcohol without a liquor licence.
The men are due to appear in the Khayelitsha Magistrate’s Court today, Thursday January 18.
Harare Community Police Forum chairperson Funeka Soldaat said illegal alcohol posed a danger to those who bought it.
“We must try to protect our communities from such behaviour because if they are able to produce illegal liquor, it means they sell to us and we buy it.
“We have a huge problem of our alcohol abuse in this country… We have young children as young as 11 drinking alcohol and they could be sold this alcohol.”
