Over 2,400 economic crimes registered in 2011

A total of 2, 427 economic related criminal cases were registered and forwarded to prosecution last year, a report by the National Police’s Department Of Economic and Financial Crimes indicates. According to the report seen by The New Times, 603 cases of theft were registered while corruption and embezzlement recorded 166 and 124 cases, respectively, most of them involving public officials. 346 and 471cases of deceit and forged financial documents also registered, in that order. However, the police could not readily attach financial value to all the crimes. Major deception cases in 2011 include a ghost group, Busingye Construction Limited, which issued fake cheques to Kobil Petroleum and Sonatube companies and took off with their products. According to the file, one Edisson Mugisha, the self-styled ‘Managing Transporter’ of the ghost company, registered as based in Gisenyi, last September issued a forged BCR cheque to Sonatube worth Rwf 19m and took 784 iron bars before he issued another fake cheque worth Rwf 39m to Kobil and went away with 40,000 litres of diesel. So far, two people have been arrested in connection with the fraud while Mugisha still remains at large. Another case involved a man (names withheld) who was conned of US$40,000 for fake titanium. Other registered cases include counterfeit (188), bouncing cheques (199), and breach of trust (297) with extortion recording 33 cases. bosco.asiimwe@newtimes.co.rw