CRIME - Police have registered a major step in destroying a notorious racket of laptop robbers. The alleged ringleaders of the racket were arrested over the weekend in connection with wide-ranging robberies in Kigali City. They were paraded before the press yesterday at Nyarugenge Police Station. According to Nyarugenge District Police Commander, Superintendent Jean Claude Kajeguhakwa, the suspects are the alleged ringleaders of another criminal gang that was arrested in February this year.

The suspects who are being detained at Nyarugenge District police headquarters are; Sixbert Ngarukiyintwari, Erneste Niyonambaza alias Rubangura and Eric Manzi.
They are all residents of Kigali City. 

"We now have the master planners; they have been top on our wanted list of the notorious bandits in the city,” Kajeguhakwa said.

The arrests were made in collaboration with different security organs in the city, he added.

Kajeguhakwa said that unlike the usual methods of robbing, the suspects, while riding fast on motorcycles grab laptops from pedestrians and sell to computer maintenance shops.

Six laptops and a motorcycle were recovered from the gang during the operation.

"When we arrested the first eleven culprits, these three escaped to Goma (in DR Congo). So, they had returned thinking that we had forgotten all about them,” Kajeguhakwa said.

Although one of the suspects, Ngarukiyintwari, denied ever taking part in the robbery, his colleague Niyonambaza confessed that the crimes were jointly conducted.

"I admit that I committed the crime. I carried it out with Ngarukiyintwari,” Niyonambaza said.

Police Spokesman Willy Marcel Higiro called on the people whose laptops were stolen to report to the Nyarugenge police station with proof, so that they can be given back their equipment.
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