Rwanda’s Investigation Bureau (RIB) has announced that it has arrested 50 people over crimes linked to the production of substandard alcoholic drinks, including unintentional homicide, while nearly 90 producers of these drinks have been shut down over the past 10 days.
This was announced by Peter Karake, Director General for Counter Terrorism and Cybercrime at RIB, as various institutions outlined the measures being taken to tackle the problem of substandard alcohol.
He said investigations into the companies producing these drinks have been ongoing for some time, and that a number of suspects have already been arrested.
“I can tell you now that we have arrested around fifty (50) people, and there are others in hiding or on the run whom we are still tracking down,” he said.
He said the charges against these individuals mainly involve one offence in particular. “The main crime they are committing is distributing substandard goods, or goods that could harm public health. Under Rwandan law, this is punishable […] by three to five years in prison, along with fines ranging from one million to five million francs,” he said.
Karake added that some of those charged face a more serious offence. “When you distribute substandard goods, there are cases where it can result in deaths you didn’t intend. That makes you guilty of unintentional homicide,” he said.
He said tests are also being carried out on these drinks to gather evidence to support the case files against the accused.
He noted that the ongoing joint inspection by different institutions has also found some recently closed companies to have been producing substandard alcohol.
“Over the past ten days, we have shut down ninety (90) companies, in addition to others we had already closed since we first identified this problem,” he said.
On Sunday, 2 August 2026, the Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority (Rwanda FDA) announced that it had shut down eight alcohol-producing companies after inspections found their products to be substandard.
The authority also identified 38 brands of alcohol produced by these companies, and ordered their immediate removal from the market to prevent further harm to public health.
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