A Lamborghini Urus and a Mercedes-Benz GLE 53 were sitting at a Harare lodge on Tuesday evening. By nightfall, Robert Mugabe’s youngest son was in a police cell.
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, 29, was arrested with four other men after an alleged assault on an investigator from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC). Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi said it happened at Brompton Guest Lodge at about 6.30pm on 3 November.
ZACC said the officer was attacked while the commission was seizing the two cars, and that the matter was reported to police.
The five were held overnight at Highlands Police Station. On Thursday, ZBC News reported that Chatunga Mugabe had arrived at the Harare Magistrates’ Court with his four co-accused. No ruling had been reported at the time of writing.
Police named the men arrested with Chatunga Mugabe as Munashe Mubawu, Terrence Johannes Chinyemba, Fredson Peter and Solomon Pamire. The allegations have not been tested in court.
Police describe the case only as assault. New Zimbabwe, citing police documents, reported more.
It said the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) is the complainant. It also reported charges under Section 136 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act or, alternatively, Section 182 of the Customs and Excise Act. The outlet tied them to the alleged smuggling of the cars.
ZACC tells the story differently. At a news conference in Harare on Wednesday, spokesperson Simiso Mlevu said the commission had acted on information about two South African-registered cars. “ZACC acted on the information that these vehicles are in the country illegally,” Mlevu said.
ZIMRA records, Mlevu said, show the Lamborghini entered Zimbabwe in June and was logged as leaving on 12 July. The Mercedes was logged as leaving on 10 October. ZACC found both at the lodge.
New Zimbabwe’s account differs. Citing police, it reported that neither car had a temporary import permit or any entry record. It said both had allegedly been hidden for about a month at a property in Newlands.
One account describes vehicles that entered under temporary import permits and were subsequently recorded as having left the country. The other describes vehicles with no permits or entry records at all.
The rules had also just changed. New Zimbabwe reported on 24 October that ZIMRA had introduced stricter controls on temporary import permits for foreign-registered vehicles. The reason was concerns about abuse of the system. ZIMRA’s own guidance lists seizure as the consequence of breaching a permit’s conditions.
Gaps remain. Neither ZACC nor the police has publicly said who owns the cars. New Zimbabwe reported that Chatunga Mugabe is alleged to have assaulted the officer. The police statement does not set out what each of the five is accused of doing.
The case follows a run of earlier arrests. In 2025, Chatunga Mugabe was arrested after a violent confrontation at a gold mining concession in Mazowe and granted bail on assault charges.
- In February, South African police spokesperson Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi confirmed that he and another man had been arrested after a gardener was shot at the Mugabe family property in Hyde Park, Johannesburg. Chatunga was initially charged with attempted murder, but later entered a plea agreement involving separate offences. His co-accused, Tobias Matonhodze, pleaded guilty to attempted murder.
On 29 April, Magistrate Renier Boshoff fined him R600,000 at the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court under a plea deal. He admitted pointing an object resembling a firearm in a separate incident, and an immigration offence. He was deported the same day.
In mid-October, Zimbabwean police arrested Chatunga Mugabe and a friend after allegedly finding 72 grammes of cannabis in the friend’s bag in an unregistered vehicle. The State withdrew the charge against him before plea.
For Chatunga Mugabe, the detail that matters now is the paperwork. The police statement confirms an assault case. The customs case rests on records that, going by the two accounts above, have yet to be reconciled.
South Africa closed its case against Chatunga Mugabe in about ten weeks, with a fine and a flight home. Harare’s has only just begun.
