The Court for the Suppression of Economic Offences and Terrorism (CRIET) has delivered its verdict in Benin in a fraud case involving ten agents of the Société des Infrastructures Routes et de l'Aménagement du Terrain (SIRAT) and one truck owner.

Various sentences pronounced against SIRAT agents. The offending agents are accused of reducing the weight of the vehicles and of pocketing the difference in fees. For large trucks, instead of putting all the axles, they reduce them, according to the prosecution. They were then accused of having committed acts of fraud in the weighing of vehicles at the Ekpè and Ahozon tolls. They are accused of having forged links with economic operators and truck owners to reduce weighing against 60,000 CFA francs per tonnage

The investigations also revealed a deal between agents and a truck owner for an amount of 500,000 FCFA. This agreement would be respected with the periodic payment of this amount to the agents.

At the end of the proceedings, the criminal judge admitted the guilt of the agents and the truck owner. He reclassified the facts of “abuse of functions and complicity in abuse of function” into “abuse of functions and complicity in abuse of function and money laundering