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Rwanda business Tycoon Tribert Ayabatwa Rujugiro known for his global tobacco and real estate empire died on Tuesday evening at the age of 82 years.

The family reported that Rujugiro died at his home in Dubai, shortly after he had dinner.
Other independent sources said the tycoon previously lived in South Africa.

Rujugiro who was the founder of the Pan African Tobacco Group – Africa’s largest indigenous producer of tobacco products fled Rwanda in 2010, and at the time of his death, he was living in Dubai. PTG owns Meridian Tobacco in Uganda which also runs the Leaf Tobacco Company.

Born in Rwanda, Rujugiro's entrepreneurial journey took him across borders as he built a business empire that spanned multiple sectors.

In Uganda, his companies operated in the districts of Arua, Koboko, Pakwach, and Nebbi among others, and he helped communities to uplift themselves in fields such as education, food security, afforestation, and water access.

Through his non-profit foundation, Rujugiro strove to help young people gain the practical engineering experience required to enter the job market in Africa.

In 2021, his success was however embroiled in controversy, with reports that he was involved in illicit trade.

The report published by Counter Extremism Project was authored by Sir Ivor a former British diplomat in April 2021

In December 2021, Rujugiro welcomed the removal of his name in a report authored by Sir Ivor Roberts titled “An Unholy Alliance: Links Between Extremism and Illicit Trade in East Africa" published in April 2021.

The Counter Extremism Project investigates how extremist and terrorist organizations are financed by the illicit trade in East Africa. It also examines how such organizations contribute to associated activities.

About Rujugiro

Rujugiro was a Pan-African industrialist. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of the Pan African Tobacco Group, Africa's largest indigenous manufacturer of tobacco products.

The company, which in 2018 celebrated 40 years of operations, manufactures cigarettes in nine African countries, namely, Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United Arab Emirates.

In an exclusive interview with the New Vision in March 2019, Rujugiro said he was born around the 1940s. “In those years, there was no birth registrar and I can't recall the exact year I was born but I was told I was born in the early 1940s. At the age of 19, I fled to Burundi, because of the political upheavals and lived there for 20 years.”