AA / Tunis / Majdi Ismail
The authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced on Saturday a significant seizure of 12 gold bars and 800,000 euros in cash.
This jackpot was found in the hands of three Chinese nationals present in the country.
The three Chinese, their interpreter, the driver and two soldiers from the Congolese army who ensured their security were arrested aboard a 4×4, which was driving at high speed on one of the DRC’s highways, reports Le Parisien.
After a search of the vehicle, authorities found wads of 100 euro notes in cash, amounting to almost 800,000 euros in total, as well as 12 gold bars, the weight of which has not yet been revealed. This jackpot was meticulously hidden under the seats and in the doors of the car. ”It’s a tenth of what they have already spent,” Jean Jacques Purusi, the director of the province concerned, said in a press release.
The three Chinese nationals were arrested as part of a secret operation by the police, two weeks after the arrest of 17 other Chinese nationals in the Mubimbi mining area in Walungu in the province of South Kivu, indicates the same source.
-The Reuters news agency reports that they owed almost 10 million euros in taxes and fines to the government.
Governor Purusi complained that 13 of them were released and expelled three days later after an order came directly from the capital Kinshasa.
The mineral-rich province of South Kivu suspended its gold mining activities last July to prevent hundreds of companies, mainly Chinese, from ”illegally” extracting the precious metal without a permit. and without declaring their profits.
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