By Tim Witcher (AFP) - January 22, 2012
UNITED NATIONS — NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo fell into a gold
smuggling trap that saw millions of dollars handed over to a notorious
Democratic Republic of Congo warlord, according to UN investigators.
Mutombo,
a 7 foot 2 inch (2.18 meter) All-Star who ended his 18-year playing
career with the Houston Rockets, has made a name for himself since
retirement in 2009 campaigning for good causes in his native DR Congo.
He was mentioned in President George W. Bush's state of the union speech
in 2007.
But Mutombo, 45, was just the latest of many gullible
individuals to be tempted by the promise of riches dealing in the
country's gold and other treasure trove of minerals.
The Mutombo
case involves bags containing millions of dollars in cash, sacks of gold
of dubious origin and intermediaries with false identities across East
Africa.
According to a report by UN sanctions committee experts,
all was seized at an airfield in DR Congo. The money ended up with Bosco
Ntaganda, a militia leader wanted for war crimes by the International
Criminal Court, and the gold in government vaults.
"Our
understanding was that Dikembe Mutombo's role was as an intermediary. We
don't suggest that he was part of some criminal gang," said Fred
Robarts, coordinator of the UN Security Council's sanctions committee
experts for DR Congo.
"He thought that there was money to be made
out of this deal and tried to set it up with a buyer to make a share of
the profit; in that, he was probably naive," Robarts told AFP from
Kinshasa.
Mutombo and relatives from DR Congo organized a meeting
at a New York hotel in December 2010 in which he proposed the sale of
475 kilograms (1,045 pounds) of gold to businessmen Kase Lawal and
Carlos St Mary, said a report by the sanctions experts.
Lawal is
the Nigerian-American head of a Houston oil company, CAMAC. St Mary
heads a diamond trading company. Lawal agreed to finance the deal and
share the estimated $10 million profit with St Mary and Mutombo.
The
gold was to be extracted in DR Congo and handed over in Nairobi. The
sanctions committee said an initial $4.8 million was handed over to one
intermediary who "disappeared."
Ntaganda presented himself as the
owner of the gold when a handover was organized in February 2011 at Goma
in eastern DR Congo -- where militias are in a murderous battle for
control of the mineral wealth.
Twenty-five metal cases of gold
were loaded onto a plane chartered by Lawal, but before it could take
off, the oil mogul's representatives and St Mary were arrested by
intelligence agents for money laundering and illegally transporting the
gold.
St Mary said Lawal told him later "that he had lost a total
of $30 million as a result of the whole ordeal, including transport
fees, fines, bribes and payments made on the gold purchase."
Neither Lawal nor Mutombo would speak to UN investigators. Neither have spoken to media about the deal.
The
sanctions experts said they were "concerned" at the growing number of
such scam cases which have sucked in the likes of the former NBA center.
The
UN investigators are meant to concentrate on tracking down the sources
of finance for Ntaganda and other eastern Congo warlords.
They see other scam cases through their detective work, said Robarts.
"They
don't always come to light because the buyers are often aware they are
only operating semi-legally and they might not have all the right
paperwork and they are just embarrassed. They don't always go to the
police."
Kenyan authorities have investigated a number of cases.
Some of the names are in Uganda and other east African countries, the
investigator said.
Targets are shown real gold with certificates
of origin. Lawal, however, made no inquiries into the real origin of the
gold he was planning to buy, the UN report said.
"It is all an
elaborate scam involving a lot of different people. And it seems to
convince buyers to the point that they don't give up easily. They want
to know what has happened to their gold rather than realizing that they
have been duped," Robarts said.
Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Bloomberg article - 18 January, 2012
Financial Crisis May Kill in Congo as Global Health Aid Stalls
By Simeon Bennett
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 28,000
people with HIV who were meant to start life-saving treatment by 2014
may not because of shortfalls in the foreign aid that pays for the
nation’s AIDS drugs, according to Doctors Without Borders. Some of those
people will get sick and die, said Thierry Dethier, an HIV analyst with
the charity that runs AIDS clinics in Congo.
“Because of the lack of drugs people don’t test
themselves,” Dethier said in an interview from the capital, Kinshasa.
“And because of that, people with AIDS are dying.”
Governments struggling to curb deficits from
Spain to the U.S. have cut or slowed the growth of their contributions
to the World Health Organization and disease-fighting funds that prop up
health services in the world’s poorest countries, according to a report
by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research unit at
the University of Washington in Seattle.
“The financing is only going to get worse,” said
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown
University in Washington, and a member of a committee advising the WHO
on an overhaul of the Geneva-based organization. “You’ve got donor
states in financial crisis and there is increased competition for
funds.”
The entire article can be found by clicking here or going to: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-18/financial-crisis-may-kill-in-congo-as-global-health-aid-stalls.html
Friday, January 6, 2012
2011 Graduation Photos
 |
| Graduates listening during the ceremony |
But after six months, they are up!
I love having a faster internet connection! :) And wow, will I miss you, Wisconsin internet, in a few short weeks...
Anyway, here's the link to the photo album.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Happy New Year
 |
| Click the photo to go to my picture albums! |
I've uploaded some photos... And hope to get some more online soon... For right now though, there are photos from my recent time in Kampala, Uganda. Check them out and enjoy!
My photo albums
love,
Bethany
*Updated 6 January 2012 - It seems the link to look at the photos was broken. But it should be working now!
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