Not all that glitters is gold!!!
LESS THAN 24 hours affer the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) announced the seizure of more than 100 Kilogrammes of what many believed to be gold from foreign nationals at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, Mines minister Paul Kabuswe has proved the age old “adage, not all that glitters is gold” true.
This morning DEC director general Nason Banda said the commission working in collaboration with other law enforcement agencies cracked down on a plane which landed illegally in the country.
Banda revealed that the seized aircraft, bearing the code name Global Express T7-WW, concealed an impressive stash of cold, hard cash, a staggering sum of $5,697,700, five firearms, namely pistols. seven magazines 126 rounds of ammunition, 602 pieces of suspected gold, weighing 127.2 kg have all been seized.
However as the old adage states, “not all that glitters is gold”, Kabuswe said the precious bars seized were actually Copper, Nickel, Tin and Zinc coated in Gold wraps!
In a press briefing this afternoon, Kabuswe said after DEC informed the ministry of mines and mineral resources about the supposed hold, experts were taken to the site and had a through examination from 16:00 hours to about 21 hours.
“The comprehensive analysis was actually done in our labs ( laboratories) and what they found in terms of content was that those bars contained copper in the range of 58 to 61 percent and zinc in the range of 38 to 41 percent,”Kabuswe revealed
He added that a trace amount of tin, ossium and nickel were found.
10 people have so far been apprehended and are currently in detention, comprising a Zambian, six Egyptians, one Spanish, one Dutch, and one Nevesian with their identities hidden.
By Moses Makwaya
Kalemba