A preliminary investigation for “aggravated laundering of embezzlement of public funds” was opened in Paris after the complaint of associations following the revelations of the report “Congo Hold-Up” on possible embezzlement of public funds, announced the National Prosecutor’s Office financial (PNF), Wednesday 8 June.
A coalition of media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) published in December an investigation based on 3.5 million confidential bank documents from the Gabonese bank BGFI, obtained by Mediapart and the NGO Platform for the Protection of Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF). It implicated the clan of the former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila.
Following a complaint lodged jointly by the associations Unis, Transparency International and Sherpa, the PNF confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) the information of Mediapart according to which he ” just opened “ a preliminary investigation, entrusted to the judicial finance investigation service (SEJF). The complaint mainly targeted the activities of the bank BGFI Europe, established in Paris.
“Bank Engineering”
Mediapart explained that this French subsidiary of the Gabonese bank BGFI had “transmits, as a correspondent bank, tens of millions of dollars of suspicious transactions related to cases of corruption and embezzlement of public funds revealed by the “Congo Hold-Up” investigations”.
Among the transactions targeted by the complaint, the validation by BGFI Europe of at least thirty-two transfers that were allegedly made or received by the Congolese company Sud Oil, for a total of more than 14 million dollars (13 million euros). This company is suspected of having been “at the heart of the system that allowed the Kabila family to embezzle 138 million dollars of public money”according Mediapart.
BGFI Gabon did not wish to comment on the opening of the investigation, “as it relates to a subsidiary”. BGFI Europe did not respond to requests from AFP.
“It is an investigation that was essential, commensurate with the exceptional evidence revealed by “Congo Heist” »welcomed the lawyers of the associations, William Bourdon and Henri Thulliez. “At the heart of the investigation is the engineering of a bank that was decisive in a transnational system of systemic evaporation of public resources for gigantic amounts”they said.
Mr. Kabila’s lawyers specified in December that the latter “reserved the right to file a complaint” faced with a “Congo Hold-Up” file full of“malicious insinuations of a rare aggressiveness”.
Aged 51 today, Joseph Kabila became president in 2001. The current head of state and former opponent Félix Tshisekedi succeeded him in early 2019.