A Brazilian Air Force jet with dozens of police officers come to fetch Gilberto Aparecido Dos Santos and took him home to face justice.

Brazil’s largest cocaine smuggler, known by as Fuminho, is a leader of the São Paulo-based First Capital Command gang that  moved drugs all over the planet.

Among the charges he faces back in Brazil is plotting to free the head of the gang, Marcos Camacho,  who is serving a 200 year sentence in a maximum security prison.

Gilbert Aparecido Dos Santos was arrested last week in a luxury Maputo Hotel with two Nigerian citizens. A quantity of drugs was seized.

His capture is part of an international sting operation.

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Hopes of become an international energy player have been delayed at least five years as Exxon Mobil put the hold on investing in the vast resource beneath Cabo Delgado.

Exxon Mobil made an intermediate decision last year to invest in the exploitation of liquid petroleum gas in Mozambique.

According to Mozambique analyst Jo Hanlon that was for the benefit of President Felipe Nysui’s election campaign.

Now the real ink on the dotted line has been delayed five years, meaning production cannot start until 2030.

The depression caused by the COVID 19 pandemic has stalled investment everywhere.

Gas prices, which follow oil prices, halved between 2018 and 2019 and then halved again this year as Saudi Arabia and Russia boosted production to push U.S. shale out of the market.

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Police running the international sting operation are looking for cronies. They say he is part of big São Paulo gang and does not operate alone.

Forty nine year old Gilberto Aparecido do Santos was nabbed at the luxury Monetebelo Indy hotel in Maputo.

Two Nigerian citizens were seized with him.

Dos Santos, known as Fuminho, is part of the game known as the First Capital Community of PCC.

They move tons of cocaine all over the world.

He arrived in Mozambique a month ago

Police seized a fake Brazilian passport, a quantity of dagga, several mobile phones and a car during the operation.

Dos Santos is accused of financing a plot to free a fellow gang member serving a 200-year term in a maximum security prison in Brazil

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There were 14 survivors.

The victims are believed to be Ethiopian.

ends intro

Immigrations officials in the northwestern Mozambique province of Tete stopped the truck from Malawi at the Moatize checkpoint near the Zambezi River..

They heard banging from inside the container and made their grizzly find after ordering the driver to open it.

The 14 survivors were taken to hospital where they will be tested for COVID19.

The Mozambican driver has, according to officials, confessed to having been hired to smuggle people across the border from Malawi.

Authorities say the dozens of dead died of oxygen deprivation.

Last October, Mozambique police stopped a lorry from Malawi carrying 42 people in a container headed for South Africa.

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The withering full report of the EU observer mission finds fraud at almost every stage the process that return President Felipe Nyusi and his Frelimo Party to power.

Back in October, the interim report of the European Union observer mission found Mozambique’s elections were held in unfair conditions, using unjustifiable state resources by the incumbents campaigns and marred by widespread violence.

These conclusions were at odds with African observers who gave the process  a thumbs up.

The EU report, which ridicules the electoral commission, will threaten the shaky peace between Frelimo and its traditional opponent Renamo stitched together before the election.

The result has been legally challenged. 

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The target was a minibus carrying 20 passengers from Palma to the provincial capital Pemba.

Police who arrived at the scene soon after the attack said they were unable to save any of the victims.

Most of them died when the taxi, which came under fire from the terrorists crashed.

Eyewitnesses  say the taxi burst into flames in which several of the passengers were burned to death.

A child was decapitated, as was another passenger in front of his wife and children.

Cabo Delgado province, where the deadly attack took place is falling increasingly under the sway of extremists who’s trademark is cutting the heads off victims.

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It come from Afghanistan and was en route to Europe and South Africa.

This is the first raid on heroin traffic off the Mozambique coast in more than 20 years.

It was undertaken by the navy and the national criminal investigation service known SERNIC.

The traffickers saw the authorities approaching and set fire to the wooden dhow carrying the drug and threw themselves into the sea 50 kms off Cabo Delgado

12 of them were saved and arrested and three drowned.

About 40 tonnes of heroin reaches Mozambique from Aghanistan every year.

From there it is shipped to Europe or taken by road to Johannesburg. 

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An NGO watching Mozambique’s election last week reports widespread ballot box stuffing in favor of Pretoria Felipe Nyusi.

In some areas the official turnout is recorded at 75% of registered voters with four faiths of them voting for Nyusi.

The Mozambique Political Process Bulletin says results have come from 138 of Mozambique 160 districts.

At least districts have not recorded results because of an illegal ban on elections observers. Results in a dozen districts are incomplete.

Some polling stations  in Frelimo’s stronghold Gaza Province record no queues throughout voting day although large numbers of ballot papers for the ruling Frelimo Party were recorded. 

During counting at some rural voting stations ballot powers were founded folded into each other. 

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President Felipe Nyusi is expected to extend his term in office, but Renamo leader Ossufo Momade looks set to become the first non-Frelimo state governor.

Some opposition parties are crying foul before the early morning voting queues in Mozambique disperse.

They point to the thousands of election observers unable to be accredited and an imbalance in state-funding of parties contesting the poll.

The election, which has been marred by violence during campaigning,  will severely test the fragile peace deal signed only two months ago by Frelimo and Renamo.

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The 43-day campaign has seen seven murders and 37 road accident fatalities.

Fighting for a second term, President Felipe Nyusi wrapped up his campaign on Saturday, expressing confidence that the ruling Frelimo party  would extend its 44 years in power.

Renamo’s Ossufo Momade has given him a run for his money.

The opposition party has joined with five others in a pact against electoral fraud.

Observers hoping to keep an eye on polling are struggling to secure accreditation.

In addition to the 44 deaths there have been 271 injuries and 59 arrests related to the election campaign.

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