Lilongwe Police arrest taxi-operator gangster

Lilongwe Police Station has arrested 43-year-old Steve Phiri who posed as a taxi operator, robbing unsuspecting passengers of valuable property and cash.

In one of the instances of many complaints the Station has received so far on the same, Phiri and his three accomplices who are currently at large, on November 2, 2023 at Chitipi location at around 08:30 hours, attacked a certain person who boarded their vehicle as a taxi, and robbed him of a laptop and five iPhones, all valued at K5.2 million.

Recently, when the social media was awash with such reports, purportedly depicting a Honda Fit vehicle registration number LL 10780 which the suspects were using, Lilongwe Police detectives hit the ground with investigations.

The detectives managed to trace the owner who told the law enforcers that he owns a fleet of cars for hire, and said that the suspects acquired the said vehicle on such basis not knowing they were criminals.

After days of manhunt, the law enforcers ambushed and arrested Phiri at Matchansi in Chilinde Township, on his way to change the car for another, after realizing that the LL 10780 vehicle had been widely circulated to be associated with criminal activities.

Then the detectives went after Phiri’s accomplices who sped off, running away from the law enforcers at Kaphiri location before disappearing.

Later, police managed to trace and recover the vehicle where it was hidden in Area 24.

However, in a surprising twist of events, after learning that their accomplice, Phiri, and the vehicle were in the hands of Area 3 Police detectives, the runaway suspects anonymously informed police to have dumped one of the stolen laptop and three iPhones at a certain bottle store in Area 50 within the City.

Apart from the laptop and three iPhones, Lilongwe Police has also recovered numerous driving licenses, national identity cards, among others, from the homes of the suspects.