The Addis Ababa Police Sunday said they have seized over 10, 000 machetes that were arranged for alleged terror plots in the metropolis.
The machetes have been seized after the police raided a target stockpile based on the tips they had got from residents of the city.
A Criminal Investigation Division Head at Addis Ababa Police Commission, Inspector Birhanu Alemu said the machetes are among the lists of items under import embargo, seemingly for security reasons due to the current situation in the country.
The public is actively participating in the efforts under way to thwart terror plots perpetrated by the terrorist Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) group, adding that investigation is underway to chase the importers of the machetes.
Late April this year, the Federal Police Commission seized 186,240 machetes that were smuggled into the city by a member of the TPLF named Dawit Yemane.
The Ethiopian Intelligence office tipped police that the machetes were imported with a fraudulent document. The importer is said to have contested the police claim.
Yemane said he used a legal document to import the items and produced those documents, as reported by state media. The Ministry of Revenue, however, confirmed that they were imported without authorization.
He is currently in police custody along with the person who is said to have facilitated passage of the containers.
MG/abj/APA