Belgian Congolese president Felix Tshisekedi has engaged a new cable of thieves to manage his drive to plunder mineral resources in the vast central African nation.
The new team of thieves is anchored on Amadou Diaby whose mother is Congolese and father is from Guinea.
Diaby is at the center of a methodical accumulation of wealth for the Tshisekedis using real estate businesses, intelligence officials close to the development have confirmed.
Diaby is using financial movements from the Gulf and Middle East to provide Tshisekedi a cover from any red flags.
Amadou’s main condition to carry out the dirty business is to have unfettered access to power.
And Tshisekedi has obliged. The journey of the Guinean businessman has never ceased to surprise the small microcosm of business in the DR Congo.
Diaby is not new to such controversy. He has been accused of racketeering and money laundering before.
Born in Kinshasa, Diaby is the son of Elhadji Baba Diaby and Congolese Régine Ntumba.
After primary studies at Boboto college, Amadou Diaby obtained his secondary school diploma at the Malula complex in the Congolese capital.
Amadou Diaby went on to create a production company, Mansa Music Product. His West African roots made it easier for him to enter the world of entertainment. Diaby produced several shows by renowned artists like Tshala Mwana and Kofi Olomide. This business with musicians also gave him access to power. The businessman won the seat of vice-president of the Guinean football federation. In 2019, he was suspended from Feguifoot for racketeering. After bringing the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS, he was reinstated in 2020. During these two years of purgatory, Amadou Diaby returned to Kinshasa.
And found consolation in his “brother Félix Tshisekedi” as he likes to say. The Congolese Head of State is seduced by the businessman who organizes the great Wenge Musica reconciliation concert.
Skillfully mixing entertainment, sport and business, Amadou Diaby has flair. He penetrates the circles of power. He weaves a real spider’s web, all the more effective since the man has contacts in Turkey.
Together with the architect of Pierre Goudiaby Atepa, Diaby has long haunted the corridors of Mobutu’s residences.
Pierre, Diaby’s famous architect, counts among his achievements the presidential palace of Kawele, about ten kilometers from Gbadolite. Today, Pierre Goudiaby, who was involved in facilitating coordination between President Macky Sall and his opponent Ousmane Sonko, is back in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The famous architect presented to the Congolese authorities a plan to relieve congestion in Kinshasa.
Diaby and Goudiaby designed the new Congolese capital. Kitoko should be a new smart and global city.
In the gallery of West Africans who have pitched their tent in the DR Congo to make their fortune there is the Gambian crook Alieuh Conteh.
After making millions in the coffee business, Conteh invested in the telecommunications sector. After obtaining an operating license in the early 2000s, the Gambian businessman will become a major shareholder in Vodacom, the first Congolese telecommunications company. Through his company Congolese Wireless Network (CWN), Conteh shares 49% of Vodacom with the Kabila clan.
In 2013, a standoff pitted the Gambian tycoon against the family of the former president who managed to oust him from the presidency of CWN. Today Vodacom is demanding $4 million USD from Alieuh Conteh and the Kabila family following two loans that the company granted them without ever having been repaid. Alieuh Badara Mohamed Conteh has American nationality and continues his life as a businessman.
With the arrival of Félix Tshisekedi to power, a new generation of West African businessmen established a foothold in Kinshasa. Their names are Stéphane Kipré and Amadou Diaby. Taking advantage of his introductions to the Tshisekedi clan, Laurent Gbagbo’s son-in-law obtained mining plots in Katanga and landed juicy contracts with the governors of Kinshasa and Lualaba. Tens of millions of USD are brewed by the young Senegalese entrepreneur.
This is the new criminal enterprise around the Congolese presidency that has taken foothold in Kinshasa.
