Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) on Tuesday returned over Rwf770m to an investor who had lost approximately Rwf1 billion to an alleged robbery ring in Rwamagana district. The money belonged to Skare Jonas, a Hungarian mining investor who is seeking to start up a business in Rwanda. According to sources, he was robbed of all his seed capital after he was apparently waylaid by people he believed were prospective business partners. “ I want to express my highest honor and respect to the Rwandan government and its investigation authorities,” he told the media on Tuesday morning. “I did not expect this experience of being robbed this amount of money the same way I wouldn’t expect that it would be recovered in this short period of time”. “But after the incident, I reported to the security forces, and you yourself can see the result, said the investor sitting in front of the defrauded money. So far, an equivalent of Rwf771,700,000 has been recovered – in different currencies; Rwandan francs, US dollars and euros, out of the total billion stolen. RIB has also seized three cars, 31 plots of land and one kilogramme of gold (costing $60,000) which are believed to be proceeds from the heist. RIB has also paraded the three suspects who are allegedly involved in the robbery, but added that more than four others are still being hunted down. Thierry Murangira, the spokesperson of RIB commended the effort by citizens in the investigations that led to the arrest of the suspects. “We are very thankful of the citizens who acted gracefully and reported in the due time, and we are calling for more collaboration from the population so as to ensure a safe and secure society,” he noted. The suspects are being investigated for five counts including aggrevated robbery, forming or joining a criminal association, fraudulent acquisition or production and use of forged documents and papers issued by competent authority, money laundering, forgery, falsification and use of forged documents, concealment of objects obtained from an offence and non-disclosure of a felony or misdemeanor.
