Dawn raid uncovers suspected stolen medicine
Police on Tuesday went on a dawn raid of a house suspected to have been doubling up as a warehouse in Lilongwe’s Mchesi Township and recovered 20 cartons of medical drugs and equipment.
and supplies
The supplies are suspected to have been stolen from public hospitals, according to police.
The pair living in the well-fenced and secured house—Chris Upindi, 35, and Efrida Upindi Malenga, 30—was arrested after the suspected illegal stuff was found stored in various rooms in the house.
The man comes from Mpondezi Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Maganga in Salima District while the woman is originally from Njati Village, T/A Mazengera in Lilongwe. Both engage in import and export cross-border small-scale businesses.
Several of the cartons bore seals for the Central Medical Stores Trust (CMST) while on some containers, the labels were either torn or removed in an apparent effort to conceal dispatch facts and figures.
However, on one carton, there is evidence that the dispatch, labelled Imperial Health Services, was destined for the Salima District Health Office Pharmacy, bearing a date of February 19 2015
“We confiscated this stuff after Kawale Police mounted a 4.10am raid today on a house we have been monitoring for some time, after we got tipped that cartons are being loaded or offloaded during odd hours,” explained Kawale Police Sub-station Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officer Arnold Sikumbiri on Tuesday.
In recent months, there have been reports of shortage or lack of drugs and equipment in public hospitals.
