Police in Zambia have rounded up around 150 suspected illegal currency dealers, in an operation aimed at wiping out the black market trade.
Police sealed off a main road in the capital's city centre where illegal currency dealers are mostly found and arrested 150 people, a senior police official told AFP.
"We are still screening them before formally charging them," Chendela Musonda said.
The dealers offer better rates than commercial banks, which give around 4,700 kwacha to the dollar, while black market prices reach 5,000 kwacha and above.
The government recently introduced new security rules requiring anybody changing money at a bank to produce an identity document and declare the source of the foreign currency -- something not required by the illegal traders.
Musonda said the police were also searching for stolen cellular phones and illegal guns that are often sold by the currency dealers.