Chinese national charged with illegal possession of firearms

via Chinese national charged with illegal possession of firearms July 25, 2014 by Phillip Chidavaenzi

A CHINESE national arrested on Wednesday after being found in possession of 33 000 rounds of assorted ammunition which he could not account for at his offices in Msasa, Harare, appeared in court yesterday charged with contravening the Firearms Act.

Wencai Huo (51), who was not asked to plead when he appeared before Harare magistrate Donald Ndirowei yesterday, was remanded to today for continuation of his bail application.

Prosecutor Sharon Mashavira alleged that Huo, who is the proprietor of Lebanmon Investments, breached sections of the Firearms Act, the Gold Trade Act, and the Parks and Wildlife Act.

The complainant in the matter is the State represented by Detective Chief Inspector Zvidzai.

The court heard that on July 22 this year at around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, police officers were carrying out routine checks at the accused person’s place of residence when they wanted to check if he was compliant with the country’s mining regulations.

It was during the inspection, it is alleged, that the police details recovered 1146 x 7,62mm and 29 934 x 7,65mm rounds of ammunition. They also discovered 323 x 12-bore rounds of ammunition, 20 by 9 x18mm rounds of ammunition and 1x243mm rounds of live ammunition.

While carrying out the search, it is alleged that the police also came across two bars of suspected gold bullion, one cone of suspected bullion, two small pieces of suspected smelted gold buttons and gold granules as well as 32 pieces of Chinese chess ivory.

The court also heard that among the findings were three unregistered firearms, a CZ pistol and two FN Browning shotguns.