The Hauts-Bassins Judicial Police Service (SRPJ-HB) caught a network of delinquents who mixed stones with sorghum and millet to sell in order to make a greater profit. The information was delivered during a press conference on Friday April 5, 2024 within the said service.
According to Police Commissioner Yacouba Funta, boss of the SRPJ-HB, it was on April 3 that his sleuths caught this network of thugs made up of a cereal trader and his employees in flagrante delicto. Their trick is to mix granite and quartz crushed to the size of sorghum grains or small grains with these cereals and package them in 100 kg bags which they sell. The employees are responsible for mixing and the NZ trader is responsible for selling them on the market. When the police arrived at N. Z’s store in the Niénata district of Bobo-Dioulasso, they got their hands on 40 bags of 100 kg ready to be evacuated, a scale which is used to weigh the bags to ensure their weight , crushed granite, empty bags.
Asked if they had granite crushing equipment, Commissioner Funta replied that they must have had one or more accomplices who delivered the already crushed granite to them, but for the moment, the trader refuses to denounce them. As for the reason for his action, he argues “want to settle a debt of more than 2 million FCFA”, again according to the boss of the SRPJ-HB. Who deplores that for so little, we endanger the lives of thousands of consumers. At the end of the custody period, this trader and his employees, minors, will be transferred to the public prosecutor’s office for the continuation of the procedure. The seized cereals will be destroyed on the instructions of the judge.
Commissioner Funta did not fail to salute the population for their frank collaboration. Because this operation was initiated on the basis of an anonymous denunciation. He urges him to “raise the level of vigilance because possible networks are still lurking in the shadows”. Finally, he invites him to “report any suspicious cases to the toll-free numbers 17, 16 and 1010”.
Aly Konate
