Harare — Former Chief Executive Officer of the Zimbabwe Football Association, Henrietta Rushwaya was on Monday nabbed by cops as she attempted to smuggle six kilograms of gold to Dubai.
Based on a police internal memorandum gleaned by Ubuntu Times, Rushwaya who is the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) president was arrested Monday at Robert Mugabe International Airport for contravening section 182 of the Customs and Excise Act.
The arrest of Rushwaya comes at a time Zimbabwe reels from corruption at the behest of the ruling elite.
This is not the first time 53-year old Rushwaya is courting controversy in the Southern African country.
In 2016, she (Rushwaya) was embroiled in a match-fixing scandal dubbed Limpopogate, which linked her to a match-fixing syndicate that had been fixing games for the past 6 years prior to 2016, a year later plotting again to fix the Zimbabwe 2017 Nations Cup qualifiers game against Swaziland.
Amongst a slew of other corruption scandals, in yet another match-fixing scandal as ZIFA boss, Rushwaya in 2009 stood accused of having organized a trip by the Zimbabwe national team to Malaysia in December during which matches were said to have been manipulated.
Now, with the leopard apparently not shedding its spots, Rushwaya has hit again, this time attempting to smuggle gold while ironically, she heads the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF).
ZMF is the brainchild of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Mines whose formation was marked to represent and contribute to the development and growth of small-scale miners.
According to police, upon her arrest, Rushwaya claimed she obtained the gold from someone only identified as Ali living at number 32 Lanark Road, Alexandra Park, Harare, whom she also claimed was a licensed gold buyer.
But a day after her arrest, Rushwaya appeared in court where she was remanded in custody to the 28th of this month, with the magistrate Ngoni Nduna saying he wanted to consider the conditions agreed by the State and the accused’s defense team.
Meanwhile, the State led by Charles Muchemwa complied that Rushwaya be given $90,000 bail (Zimbabwean dollars).