Yes you are right, it’s kind of a complex way of handling things actually 
We are duplicating the data from Strapi to keep the same “data management pattern” between all the data used in our system. We thought it would be more convenient to access strapi data the same way we do for other services (instead of reaching strapi API to access it), but after thinking about it and the way Strapi is built and with your feedback, it will be way more convenient to just have Strapi related data in Strapi database and reach it from Strapi API. Thanks again for your help 