Kirundo: two traders in custody for dry coffee

Leonidas Hakizumwami and Éric Hatungimana are detained since Tuesday after their arrest at the home of Leonidas Hakizumwami nicknamed Bitanagira. It is in the capital of the province of Kirundo, northern Burundi. They are prosecuted for illegally selling dry coffee in Rwanda.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The two men were arrested during a search at Léonidas Hakizumwami’s home.

“The police and intelligence officers arrived at Hakizumwami’s house around 6 p.m. They carried out a search and found more than two tons of dry coffee in one of the rooms of his house. Even more serious, they discovered Eric Hatungimana, a trader from Nyamabuye hill in Bugabira commune who had just escaped from the Bugabira communal cell,” witnesses say.

According to our sources, Éric Hatungimana was detained for illegally possessing 800 kg of dry coffee in transit to Rwanda on May 8.

“During the interrogation, he indicated that he was working on behalf of Hakizumwami. And when he escaped from the cell, the police suspected his boss. This is how a search was organized at his home. And Surprisingly, the escapee was found hiding in his employer’s house,” a police source reacted on condition of anonymity.

According to our sources, Burundian traders are tempted by a price offered for dry coffee from Burundi. A single kilo of dry coffee would cost four times the price on the Burundian market.

For days, people have been apprehended in the communes of Bugabira (Kirundo) and Busiga (Ngozi) secretly transporting coffee to Rwanda.

In meetings with security and administrative officials, Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye has always described traders who sell Burundian goods to Rwanda, including minerals, as “enemies of the country who must be treated as disruptors of the Burundian economy.”

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Part of the quantity of coffee seized in Ngozi