3 May 2009

Kampala — A Pastor recently confessed to having stolen cars and sold them in the DR Congo. Pastor Godfrey Kizito of Kawuku Miracle Centre, Wakiso District, is a member of a racket the Police busted recently.

According to the Police's Rapid Response Unit (RRU), Kizito, before he was caught, masterminded the theft of several cars around the country, which were sold in the DRC and Southern Sudan.

Kizito was arrested along with his brother, Henry Kizito, after they allegedly stole an Isuzu tipper, registration number UAL 071E in Nansana, a Kampala suburb, on December 27, 2008. The duo made duplicates of the car keys after the owner left them with the in-charge of a parking lot at Nansana.

Later, they returned and deceived the guards that the owner had told them to pick the vehicle. The Police intercepted them at Atiak as they drove towards the DRC to sell it to a Congolese national for $7,000 (about sh15m).

Kizito, 37, told the Police that he had been stealing cars for 15 years. He estimated that he had stolen at least 30.

"Afande, you are the one who can remember the vehicles I have stolen because you keep records about me. How many cars have I stolen?" the pastor asked a Police officer. Kizito, who has been selling cars, oil and spare parts in the DRC, has been arrested several times, taken to court and released, only to pick up from where he had left off.

According to Police sources, many car robbers used Kizito as their link to the lucrative DRC market. The pastor enjoyed the protection of a Congolese Colonel based in Aru. Sometime back, several Ugandan informers were arrested in Aru and were only released when Ugandan authorities intervened.

The Rapid Response Unit (RRU) has established an office at Koboko in West Nile, to help repatriate vehicles which are taken to the DRC and South Sudan. This is done under goodwill arrangements, as there is no repatriation treaty among the three countries. The Police said when the cars are stolen, they are taken to houses well known to robbers as "fridges", where number plates and logbooks are changed.

Recently, city businesswoman Proscovia Nabbosa lost her pick-up truck, Reg. No. UAK 507G at gunpoint in Matugga, Wakiso District. The car was later spotted in the DR Congo but the Ugandan informer who followed it was arrested and detained by security officials there.

The Police crime report (2007) indicates that at least 620 vehicles were stolen, 27 of them robbed directly from the owners.

In another incident, the RRU arrested two suspects and recovered a vehicle, Reg. No. UAJ 205K, a Fuso lorry in Bundibugyo District on December 30, 2008. The suspects, John Mubiru Nsubuga and Misaki Bwambale, allegedly intended to sell it in the DRC.

According to the Police, the suspects approached the truck driver at Kabalagala, claiming that they wanted him to transport the body of their relative from Mityana.

On the way, they bought the driver a drink in which they mixed sedatives, which knocked him out, and they abandoned him there. They were later arrested at the Uganda-DRC border.