The Judicial Court of KaMpfumo Municipal District, in Maputo City, will put in the dock the former Inspector and former Director of the National Inspection of Economic Activities (INAE), Verónio Gaspar Duvane, and eight officers of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM), according to a statement of the Central Office for Combating Corruption (GCCC), quoted in the press.

The accusation of illicit charges and abuse of office was filed by the Attorney General's Office and submitted to the Maputo Court.

Duvane was found and arrested in May in flagrante delicto in possession of 250,000 meticais in bribes, extorted from a foreign businessman in Maputo city. He allegedly requested the amount so that the irregularities verified in the establishment would not be reported in the reports and so that he would not be fined.

"In the course of the proceedings in allusion [No. 30/11/P/GCCC/2022] eight members of the PRM were also arrested on suspicion of their involvement in acts of improper collection and illegal detention to the same economic agent," it reads.

Following this, investigations by the GCCC led to the arrest of eight PRM officers involved in the same case and other suspected extortion of economic agents.

Of the nine defendants, the former Inspector and former Director of INAE is provisionally out of jail thanks to the payment of a bond of about 500,000 meticais, days after his arrest. The others are being held in pre-trial detention.