Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) has announced that Jean Ruranga, 53, a former State Attorney in the Ministry of Justice who was representing the government in court cases, is in custody over crimes of money laundering and illicit enrichment (failure to justify origin of properties).
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Money laundering involves disguising financial assets so they can be used without detection of the illegal activity that produced them. The criminal transforms the monetary proceeds derived from criminal activity into funds with an apparently legal source.
Illicit enrichment is defined as a significant increase in the assets of a public official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to his or her lawful income.
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According to RIB, Ruranga is detained at Kicukiro RIB station in Kigali.
The suspect was operating as court bailiff after resigning from the Ministry of Justice until he was arrested on June 8.
Ruranga’s file was forwarded to prosecution on August 13 and he is wait to be arraigned in court, according to RIB.
He is suspected to have connived with a trader called Jean Damascène Nkundimana, 42, to commit money laundering and illicit enrichment crimes. According to RIB, the crimes were committed in different periods from 2021 when Ruranga was still in the Ministry of Justice up to the beginning of this year.
Rurangwa is suspected of using his power in the ministry to easily buy assets through property devaluation, thereby plunging owners into losses. He allegedly connived with Nkundimana to sell the assets comprising houses, land, and forest plantations across the country worth Rwf500 million at a higher value to generate exorbitant incomes.
RIB’s spokesperson, Thierry Murangira, explained that money laundering and failure to explain the origin of property are crimes committed when people illegally obtain assets and invest them in legal activities.
"Some acquire loans from banks so that people think they build such houses, buy land and forests by spending the acquired loans yet it is through money laundering,” he explained.
Illicit enrichment is punished under the 2018 law against corruption.
Under Article 9, any person who cannot justify the source of his or her assets compared with his or her lawful income commits an offence.
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Upon conviction, he or she is liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than seven years but not more than 10 years with a fine of three to five times the value of the property the legal source of which, they are not able to justify.
As per Article 54 of the 2023 law on prevention and punishment of money laundering, financing of terrorism and financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, if convicted, one faces an imprisonment of 10 years but not more than 15 years with a fine of three to five times the value of the property laundered.