The detentions were entirely thanks to investigations undertaken by the independent television station, STV. On Tuesday night, STV, tipped off by an anonymous caller, sent reporters to the airport where it found 63 Bangladeshis held by the immigration authorities because their entry visas were forgeries.
After this report was aired, STV received another call informing them that dozens of other foreigners had entered the country at the same time, got through the airport and were holed up in a nearby transit house.
This time STV decided to notify the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC), and so at midnight police and reporters turned up at the house, surrounded by a high wall. Since it is illegal for the police to search residences at night, the police, accompanied by the TV crew, waited until 05.00 before banging on the gate and demanding admission.
When the gate was not opened, the police clambered over the wall. One man appeared but claimed he did not have the keys to the house. So the police broke down the door and inside they found room after room full of sleeping Asians. A final count showed that there were 70 in all, traveling on Pakistani and Bangladeshi passports.
The house contained almost no furniture apart from a television set, a cooker, and a refrigerator containing no food. There were a couple of mattresses and a few mats, but most of the Asians slept on the floor, some of them in the same room where their last meal had been cooked.
The Asians seemed to be carrying very few possessions, apart from the clothes they were wearing and some rucksacks. All of them were young men.
As with the 63 Bangladeshis held at the airport, most of this group claimed to speak neither Portuguese nor English. Those who could make themselves understood claimed they had come to Mozambique either as tourists or in search of business opportunities.
The owner of the house was a Pakistani man named Momad Altaf, and when STV asked him why he had 70 people sleeping there, he replied they are my best friends. When the police inspected Altafs cell phone, they found text messages sent by a certain Maksud with the names of all the people Altaf was supposed to accommodate in his house.
According to the STV report, the 70 arrived on the same Ethiopian Airways flight that had carried the 63 Bangladeshis, and the entry visas in their passports were also forgeries which raises the question: how did they get through immigration control?
It seems that the scheme to smuggle all 133 into the country failed because some of the immigration officers on duty were diligent or honest enough to spot the fake visas and refused to allow 63 of them through.
But somebody else checked (or failed to check) the other 70, who were whisked through the airport and taken to the transit house. STV reporters noted several Asian men outside the airport terminal, repeatedly making calls on their mobile phones.
At least some of the Bangladeshis had plenty of money. One of them offered STV reporter Jose Belmiro 1,500 US dollars, if he could negotiate with the immigration authorities to let them into the country. He declined the offer.
The police had no doubt that they had stumbled across a people trafficking racket but it is not yet known whether the final destination of the Asians was Mozambique, or whether they were to be moved on to work as cheap labour somewhere in South Africa.
The case is highly embarrassing for Ethiopian Airlines, which started operating regular flights between Addis Ababa and Maputo in early December.
The Ethiopian Airlines director in Maputo, Hailu Woldekian, strongly denies that his company is complicit in people trafficking. As far as he was concerned, the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis had shown valid passports, and what looked like valid visas. They had paid for their tickets, and were thus entitled to be treated just like any other passenger.
Maputo City police spokesperson Arnaldo Chefo had no doubt that the 70 men in Altafs house could only have entered the country through corruption in the immigration services. An investigation is now under way to ascertain how it was possible for so many people to enter the country on false visas.
The 133 Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are currently being held in several Maputo police stations prior to their repatriation.
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