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🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ] Chapter 3: A Bigger Fish Picture this: a man sipping coffee on the Caribbean coast, breathing in the humid Colombian air. A month later, he’s appointed special envoyof the Congolese president, trying to navigate the twists of local politics — or rather, to find out where money might be siphoned from. ⏩ This is how the second key player enters our story — Luc Gérard Nyafé — whose group of companies called Stratégos is still fighting Kasongo's Shomka Resources for ownership of Banro’s former assets. 🔸Nyafé is believed to be a South American businessman of Congolese origin who made his fortune in Colombia managing the investment fund Tribeca Asset Management, the Stratégos Group, and two mining firms — Auplata Mining Group and La Compagnie Minière de Touissit (Morocco). 🔸In the DRC, he was virtually unknown until 2019, when he suddenly appeared at a meeting with President Tshisekedi in February 2019 (just a month after Tshisekedi had been sworn in himself) and was soon appointed his special envoy. 🔸 Luc Gérard Nyafé adapted quickly. Within a year of his appointment, one of his companies — Stratégos Group LLC — was selected as the contractor for the Special Economic Zone Maluku project near Kinshasa. By September 2021, it was already known that Stratégos planned to buy Banro’s assets. ⏩ At this point, Kasongo’s illegal scheme encountered an unexpected obstacle — the ambitions of the new president’s favorite. 🔸 Apparently, at some point Banro changed its mind about giving away its assets for free and demanded that Shomka withdraw from the site. Instead, in December 2022 Banro reached an agreement to sell its assets to Luc Gérard Nyafé, although the details of that deal remain unknown. 🔸The only information available suggests that Nyafé sought Chinese investors for the purchase, as the holding that took ownership of the assets was named Oriental Jinzi (see the letter from Stratégos to Namoya Mining S.A. employees below). Locals believe that the investor is the company Zinji, noting the syllable swap “Zin-ji” / “Jin-zi,” although in Chinese "Jinzi" simply means “gold.” ⏩ But even here, things didn’t go as planned. 🔸First, the special envoy apparently fell out of favor quite quickly — in April 2022 Stratégos Group LLC lost the right to develop the SEZ, and by April 2023 Nyafé had left his post entirely. 🔸 Second, it appears that before Nyafé entered the scene, in 2021, the Commercial Court of Kinshasa had already approved a debt settlement agreement between Banro and its creditors, leaving Shomka with certain residual rights to the mines. It’s quite possible that the settlement reached in April 2021, under the supervision of the court, allows Shomka to claim not monetary compensation but an actual equity stake — one that Stratégos now refuses to share. To this day, Nyafé and Kasongo continue to dispute ownership of the mines — which, in the meantime, remain idle. Who will eventually come out victorious in this story? Nobody knows. What we can tell for sure is who will actually lose - it is ordinary Congolese who will lose the most - jobs and tax revenues, while big guys try to sort things out. Devils Below

🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ] Chapter 2: Racketeering — a DIY Kit One does not need a PHD to do racketeering - it as simple as that. Kasongo himself claims that in June 2020 Banro approached him and his group of companies to help secure the safety of Banro’s workers from the attacks of the local militias. Allegedly, in exchange, Banro gave Kasongo the Namoya mine — first for temporary management, and then permanently. :) In reality, the former vice minister simply decided to snatch the assets of a dying company, using his connections and his position within the elite formed under former President Kabila. Here’s a clear step-by-step guide for beginners on how this is done: 🔸 Victor Kasongo was not only a former vice minister but also a former board member of several major Congolese banks — Banque Commerciale Du Congo (BCDC), BGFI Bank, and President Kabila’s investment vehicle Kwanza Capital. 🔸 In turn, BCDC was Banro’s main domestic creditor in 2020. Official Gazette publications about the preventive settlement process show that Banro’s subsidiary Namoya Mining S.A. owed BCDC around $10 million. 🔸 Putting two and two together, Kasongo decided to exploit the system and use the preventive settlement process to take Banro’s assets for himself at the expense of other creditors. To pull off this scheme, Kasongo followed this playbook: 🔸He first leveraged his connections within BCDC and possibly the government, promising both parties a share of the potential benefits from transferring Banro’s assets into his hands. 🔸🔸Then he approached the Chinese — Baiyin Nonferrous Group, which, as noted, had increased its share in Banro in 2018. By 2020, Baiyin apparently sensed where things were heading, decided to part ways with the unlucky Canadians, and accepted Kasongo’s offer. According to filings from the Company Register of Hong Kong, Baiyin obtained in his company the same 35% share it had in Banro. 🔸🔸🔸Finally, Kasongo contacted Banro, demanding that, as part of the settlement process with BCDC, the Namoya mine be transferred for temporary management to Shomka Resources — a company from the Shomka Group, registered in Hong Kong shortly beforehand precisely to intercept Banro’s assets. ... And there is also an even more criminal nuance 👇 Devils Below

🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation] Chapter 1: A Cheerful Retirement Do you have plans for retirement? Personally, I want to save enough money and then just sit at home growing cabbage. But not everyone finds such a peaceful lifestyle appealing. For example, businessman and banker, former DRC Vice Minister Victor Kasongo prefers racketeering and asset grabbing. After years of serving his homeland and former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, he decided to pursue something more exciting — and tried to seize the gold assets of the Canadian company Banro (spoiler: it didn’t work out as he planned). 👆 If that kind of leisure activity sounds interesting, let me tell you how it went in practice: But first, let me introduce you to the Canadian company Banro. Banro was unlucky — the company bet everything on Congo and spectacularly lost in a brutal African roulette. 🔸 Initially, Banro tried to enter the DRC gold mining sector in the late 1990s but failed because of the 1998–2003 war. 🔸 When Banro finally gained access to the Congolese deposits — specifically Twangiza, Namoya, Kamituga, and Lugushwa — it took about ten more years of design and construction work before the Twangiza mine poured its first gold bar in 2012. 🔸 By the time the second mine, Namoya, produced its first gold in 2016, the company was already doomed, though that wasn’t yet obvious. After the opening of Namoya, company workers were attacked by local militias of the Mai-Mai Malaika group, who made money from artisanal mining at the same site. 🔸 Between 2016 and 2019, Banro had to suspend its operations at least three times because of these attacks, and after four Namoya employees were kidnapped in July 2019, Banro declared force majeure and permanently ceased all operations in the DRC. ⏩ Some local insurgents — sure, that happens all the time in these parts. But did that really mean they had to shut down completely? ⏪ 🔸Meanwhile, starting in 2014, the company had accumulated heavy debt with its main investors — the American Gramercy Fund Management andthe Chinese Baiyin Nonferrous Group. Due to constant disruptions, Banro became unable to meet its obligations, leading to a restructuring in 2018, after which Baiyin and Gramercy significantly increased their stakes in the company. In the end, the Chinese held about 32% of Banro — an important number, remember it. 🔸 In 2020, after declaring force majeure, Banro initiated a preventive settlement procedure with its local creditors in the DRC. And this is where Victor Kasongo Shomari entered the scene — former Vice Minister of Mines, mining entrepreneur, associate (and possibly distant relative) of ex-President Joseph Kabila, and a senior figure in banks and funds that managed the economic interests of the former president and his entourage. 🔸Kasongo heads the Shomka Group, which, according to him, obtained control over Banro’s assets through a ruling by the Commercial Court of Kinshasa during that same preventive settlement process — or so he claims loudly everywhere. The funny thing is that before this process, Shomka Group had absolutely nothing to do with Banro - but we'll discuss it in the second part. Scroll down. 👇 Devils Below

🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation] A vivid illustration of how elites fight for resources — the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo 🔎 In our observation of African resource industries, we came across a fascinating story - illustrative of how elite politics works and how African gold becomes the subject of inter-elite rivalry with the example of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prepare yourself for a trip through the wild world of Congolese the undercover struggle for gold rent. I promise that by the end, you'll have a much better understanding of what the struggle over African resources really is like. 🔗Here are links, that will help you navigate through the story: Chapter 1. A Cheerful Retirement Chapter 2. Racketeering — a DIY Kit An Important Remark Chapter 3. A Bigger Fish Devils Below