US$160K Land Cruiser Stolen In Harare, Cloned, Registered And Sold In Malawi In One Day – With Interpol Clearance

US$160K Land Cruiser Stolen In Harare, Cloned, Registered And Sold In Malawi In One Day – With Interpol Clearance

“Cruiser Mhani” Now Belongs To A Malawi Businessman, Sold For US$50K

By Fanuel Viriri

A US$160,000 Toyota Land Cruiser hired in Harare, Zimbabwe for a holiday trip to Kariba is now at the heart of an international vehicle theft ring after it was cloned, smuggled through Mozambique and sold in Malawi — all in one day, with official Malawi Revenue Authority and Interpol clearance papers.

What started as a routine booking in Borrowdale — a 2024 Land Cruiser 300, registration AGP 6655, worth US$160,000, hired for a week’s self-drive to Kariba — turned into a cross-border heist.

The woman who hired the vehicle used a South African passport in the name of Jolene Van Vuuren. She vanished after the vehicle’s tracker was disabled and her phone went dead.

The car was allegedly cloned using stolen South African registration papers, its identity changed to LT07MGGP, and smuggled through Mozambique. On the same day it entered Malawi — 25 April 2025 — it was issued with a Malawi Revenue Authority Temporary Importation Permit at Dedza Border and an Interpol police clearance certificate at Area 30 Police Headquarters in Lilongwe, both in the name of Van Vuuren.

It was then allegedly sold on the same day to Malawian businessman Yollam Kawanga for US$50,000, with US$26,000 paid upfront and a balance of US$24,000 to be paid within 30 days.

Kawanga says he personally took the vehicle to the Interpol desk and was told it was not listed as stolen anywhere in the world.

When the owner of the vehicle, Nesbert Mukora of AfroTrails Car Hire, hired Zimbabwean private investigator Tafadwa Chidawa of Matrix Investigations, the vehicle was traced to Lilongwe’s affluent suburbs. Malawi Police recovered it in Area 47 and impounded it at Area 3 Regional Police Headquarters.

Two suspected middlemen were arrested, including Zimbabwean Tendai Mtunguwazi, 40, and South African Kabelo Khotlele, 28, who remain on remand at Maula Prison in Malawi.

South African Police Captain Jeffry Barry Lucas, of the International Vehicle Crime Investigation Unit, later confirmed in an affidavit that the registration certificate used, serial BZ8258206, had been reported stolen under Pretoria Central CAS 220/08/2024 and that the WesBank border clearance letter was fake.

Despite the arrests and an Interpol alert, the Lilongwe Magistrate’s Court granted summary judgment in Kawanga’s favour and returned the vehicle to him, ruling that because it had official MRA and Interpol papers, he was a bona fide purchaser who could not have known of any criminality, after Mukora’s lawyers failed to appear in court.

Mukora’s Malawi lawyer Khwima Mchizi says they were never served with the court documents and are now seeking rescission, while Director of Public Prosecutions Masauko Chamkalala says his office was not informed of the order to release the car and is not prosecuting Kawanga.

Today the disputed Land Cruiser, still carrying its Zimbabwean identity AGP 6655 underneath the cloned papers, is back on the streets of Lilongwe in Kawanga’s hands — cleared by one court as an innocent purchase and wanted by another country as stolen property — while the woman at the centre of the scheme remains at large.