Ethiopian Review

Addis Ababa — The Revenue and Custom Authority (RCuA) suffered a devastating court defeat this week over its intelligence officers’ seizure of 15.6 kilograms of gold allegedly being smuggled into Addis Ababa in May.

The officers were informed about the gold being smuggled to the capital from the eastern part of the country. The information passed to the officials included the registration number of the truck suspected to contain the gold and the exact destination of the precious metal.

The officers waited for six hours at a customs station in Kality on the outskirts of Addis, but the truck with the identified plate number had arrived at the customs station and passed through the usual inspection process with no gold found on it.

However, the customs unit had no doubt about their information, which led them and the Federal Police to secretly drive behind the truck with the intention of locating collaborators and apprehending the recipients.

They then spent more than three hours following the truck, but they did not find any other people involved. Finally, the intelligence unit ordered police to stop the truck and arrest the driver and a passenger.

At the request of the customs officers, the police checked the two side boxes of the truck and found six bars of gold inside with an aggregate weight of 15.6kg.

The authority submitted the gold to the National Bank of Ethiopia after having it authenticated it at the Geological Survey.

Prosecutors for the authority were very confident about winning the subsequent court case owing to their solid evidence, however, they were unaware of the suspects’ right to trade in gold. The defendants told the court that they have a licence to buy gold from associations allowed to engage in gold exploration, and they always buy gold from associations and sell it to the national bank.

This particular haul was bought from an association that extracts gold in Shakisso zone of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR), according to the suspects’ explanation in court.
“But this time the Revenue and Customs Authority detained us while we were trying to submit the gold to the national bank,” the suspects argued.

Prosecutors for the authority had nothing to oppose the suspects’ argument as they were not aware of this angle. This led the judge to give a verdict in favour of the defendants.
The suspects have been released free of charge.

- By Yohannes Anberbir | Capital Ethiopia