Rwanda National Police has arrested five people suspected to be part of the criminal group defrauding traders in the City of Kigali.
The suspects were arrested separately in Kigali in the past one week. They had already duped seven traders in Kigali of about Rwf50 million, at the time of their arrest.
According to investigations, the suspected conmen would pose as employees of Strabag, a road construction firm, looking for spare parts for their tractors.
They had bought boxes of the said spare parts, which they would sell to victim at a very high price.
After identifying a potential target, one of the suspects would call the traders to sell them the fake idea of supplying strabag with the equipment.
The victims would then be given contacts of another person claiming to be the technical director of strabag, who claims to be based in Gicumbi.
The fake technical director would them inform the victims, separately, of how they need the equipment as soon as possible, offer them a very high price if he delivered the equipment and would direct him to another person – member of the gang – claiming he’s the only person with those spare parts.
The victim would then buy the apparatuses at a very high price and the suspects would varnish after accomplishing their scam.
Police said the suspects will be charged with fraud and deceit under article 318 of section 7 of the penal code.
CIP Emmanuel Kabanda, the director of Media in Rwanda National Police said investigations are still ongoing to bring to justice all those that could be connected to this scam.
He also warned the business community against involving in illegal businesses.
“Besides evading taxes, they end up losing even what they had, which is avoidable if they had conducted their transactions in a legal way,” CIP Kabanda, said.
He also advised them to always buy goods from recognized traders.
He further appealed to telecom companies to be vigilant when selling SIM cards or making SIM-swaps.
The gang had used photocopies of other people’s national ID to buy SIM-cards, which they used to coordinate their criminal acts.
RNP
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