The trafficking of counterfeit banknotes seems to reach unsuspected levels in Senegal: businessmen, ordinary citizens, foreigners, civil engineering technicians, elected officials and other official counterfeiters, etc., have been indexed in this traffic. In November 2019, the Research Section (SR) of the Colobane Gendarmerie, after several days of surveillance, managed to catch Seydina Fall, alias Bougazelli, a deputy from the ruling party, in the act of allegedly trafficking in counterfeit banknotes. then, the Alliance for the Republic (APR). Bougazelli was arrested on Thursday, November 14, 2019, at the Ngor gas station by elements of the SR of the Gendarmerie, with 32 billion FCFA in fake bank notes. The gendarmes set a trap for him following the arrest of Mr. Mamadou Samb with counterfeit bills.
Presented to the former dean of investigating judges, the late Samba Sall, after two days of police custody in the premises of this special unit of the Gendarmerie, he was finally placed under arrest warrant for crimes “criminal conspiracy, counterfeiting of legal tender bank notes, money laundering and corruption”, for having offered the investigating gendarmes, to bribe them, 10 million FCA in exchange for his freedom. Just like his five (5) alleged acolytes, including a Burkinabé.
But, on June 3, 2020, after a little more than seven (7) months in prison, he was able to regain his freedom, after several rejections of requests for provisional release submitted by his lawyers, for medical reasons, to the ex- dean of investigating judges. A provisional freedom which continues until today, without the Senegalese being edified on the ins and outs of this affair which hit the headlines because it shook the second institution of the country (the National Assembly whose president is the second personality of Senegal, after the President of the Republic).
Reacting to this conditional release, the Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seal at the time, in a press release made Public, clarified that he was not interfering in the legal proceedings against the accused and that also that the latter’s file is still in the hands of the investigating magistrate. “The investigations are continuing their course, incriminating and exonerating, at the end of which, the decision will be taken or not, to bring him before the trial court if necessary”, said the Ministry of Justice. Not without noting that “the reasons for placement under arrest warrant and provisional release inherent in the secrecy of the investigation are known only to the investigating magistrate, the Public Prosecutor and the counsel”. Therefore, he will emphasize, in the same document: “all other information and interpretations on the decision to release and on the outcome which will be given to the case constitute gratuitous speculation”. Bougazelli has since been free as air.
I.DIALLO
