The Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) arrested a young man in possession of several human organs in the center of the country, a source told Lusa yesterday.

The 18-year-old man reportedly attacked to death the private guard of a residence in the Vanduzi district, before removing part of the organs he said were "ordered by his boss," who is also wanted, said Mario Arnaça, a police spokesman.

The name of the detainee has already been associated with attempted kidnapping of minors and cases of organ trafficking, aborted by the police, in Manica.

This time, the suspect says he was hired "to search for human organs" and enticed the guard with alcoholic beverages, taking him drunkenly to the residence where he worked, consummating the crime on Wednesday night.

He told this version of events to the police in the presence of his parents, describing his boss as a Bengali citizen to whom he wanted to settle a debt of 55,000 meticais that resulted from the disappearance of construction materials.

In other words, to be cleared of the crime of theft and to settle the debt, "the Bengali told me to kill a person and take his head and lungs," he said.

The situation already has a history in Manica province and is usually linked to witchcraft and other illicit enrichment practices.

In April, one person died during riots caused by hundreds of people who took to the streets and destroyed two residences of a local merchant, because they suspected him of kidnapping two daughters of his employees.

The suspicion arose after the population found what they considered to be parts of human organs stored in two refrigerators.

The unrest led to clashes with the police, who were meanwhile trying to disperse the demonstrators.

In 2020, the police reactivated the alert on human trafficking in Manica province after foiling three cases of attempted child trafficking in one week.

Judicial authorities put the region on "red alert" in 2012 as they considered the rise in the number of cases of human and human organ trafficking to be "alarming."