Kenyan authorities are holding three foreign nationals suspected to be engaged in smuggling precious minerals to Dubai (the United Arab Emirates) through Nairobi, according to a highly placed source within the Police Service Commission.
The three men are believed to ringleaders in the smuggling trade of precious minerals within the Eastern African region. They are named as Abdallah Hassan Moustafa, who holds a Gabonaise passport, Sagbo Dotonou, the holder of a Beninoise passport, and Ahmed Khanfri, suspected to be a Tunisian.
The precious minerals seized by Kenyan security agencies have an estimated market value of $ 44 million – a whopping Ksh5.7 billion shillings. A prominent Kenyan businessman, not in custody, is the fourth suspect as well as their go-between in their dealings with the Congolese in Kinsasha high-end villas and the glittering hotels of Dubai.
Minerals found in the Congo include copper, cobalt, cassiterite (the chief source of metallic tin), zinc, manganese, cadmium, germanium (a brittle element used as a semiconductor and much in demand for cellphones), palladium, (a metallic element used as a catalyst for alloys), uranium, platinum silver and, of course, gold. This is in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo alone.
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The region west of Lake Kivu contains cassiterite, columbotantalite, wolframite (a source of tungsten), beryl, monazite (a phosphate of the cerium metals and thorium). Lake Kivu also harbours vast deposits of iron ore and gem-quality. Diamonds are found in south-central Congo, while the central regions are rich in industrial diamonds. In the northeast there are gold, coal, and iron-ore deposits; and there are prospective deposits of gold, monazite and diamonds in the northwestern regions. Coastal Congo also contains bauxite and deposits of gold.
While Sagbo Dotonou, the Beninoise, is suspected to have quietly and without noise been smuggling precious minerals from the jungle areas of Katanga and Ahmed Khanfri focused his contraband moving from the northwestern regions of the nation, the suspected ring-leader, Abdallah Hassan Moustafa, is suspected to have been moving merchandise from the south-central region of the country. All the three have been using false documents to move the precious minerals.
“Abdallah Hassan Moustafa”, for instance, has three passports, so authorities here are still trying to authenticate his identity, if he is from Gabon or another nation altogether.
All three men are wanted by authorities in the Congo for their smuggling activities that involve moving precious minerals across not just borders from the DRC to Kenya, but across seas to their ultimate destination in precious mineral loving and consuming Dubai.
In March of 2011, none other than then president Joseph Kabila flew to Nairobi for emergency talks with (late) Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to discuss the gold smuggling syndicates that were based in Kenya and taking precious minerals out of the DRC. With this $44 million precious minerals’ seizure, it feels like déjà vu from the Democratic Republic of Congo, thirteen years down the line.
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