The intercepted merchandise smuggled include 319 bales of used shoes and 50 bales of secondhand clothes locally known as caguwa.<\/p>\n
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Elias Mwesigye, the Commanding Officer (CO) for the Rwanda National Police (RNP) Marine Unit, said the merchandise was seized from five Congolese nationals, who were also taken into custody.<\/p>\n
Those who were trying to smuggle it include Byadunia Barume, Mulikuza Busani Nikora, Bahati Bahavu Christian, Kameme Elie, and Mungoakonkwa Amini Bosco.<\/p>\n
ACP Mwesigye said the boat was seized thanks to a tip-off from members of the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had earlier in the day received information about a boat that would be heading to Karongi District from Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, through Lake Kivu\u201d, ACP Mwesigye said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarine officers were deployed and the boat loaded with the merchandise was intercepted at about 9 pm, as it approached Nyamunini Island. Five people, all Congolese, who were on board were immediately taken into custody,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Marine police is charged with, among others, fighting illegal commercial activities and other crimes in national water bodies including illegal cross-border.<\/p>\n
The goods, ACP Mwesigye said, were handed over to Revenue Protection Unit (RPU), a Rwanda National Police (RNP) arm attached to Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) to fight fraud and smuggling, among others.<\/p>\n
According to RPU said merchandise weighing about 10.5 tonnes, had evaded taxes amounting to over Rwf48.7 million.<\/p>\n
A kilogram of used clothes and shoes pays US$4 in taxes.<\/p>\n
ACP Mwesigye said the suspects committed two offenses; \u201cfraud and illegal cross-border.\u201d
\nUnder the East African Community Management Act, which is applicable in Rwanda, seized smuggled goods under article 199, are auctioned.<\/p>\n
Illegal cross-border is also punishable under article 44 of law No. 57\/2018 of 13\/08\/2018 relating to emigration and migration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIllegal activities in water bodies can be dangerous; smugglers often overload their boats to maximize profits, which can also turn disastrous; the boat can capsize leading to loss of lives,\u201d the Commanding Officer said.<\/p>\n
He, however, said that the \u201cstrong partnership\u201d with fishing cooperatives in Lake Kivu and neighboring communities continue to yield positive results against illegal activities like smuggling and illegal fishing, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rwanda National Police, marine unit has intercepted at least 398 bales of second-hand clothes and shoes in Rutsiro District, Mushubati Sector that were being smuggled into the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo through Lake Kivu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-38553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38553"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=38553"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=38553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}