Summary: A financial data leak, the biggest in African history containing 3.5 million documents covering nearly a decade of transactions at a major bank, BGFI, contains evidence that tens of millions of dollars in public money was transferred into bank accounts owned by friends and family of the former President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila; his sister partially owned the bank, and his brother ran it.
Context: A consortium of 19 journalistic entities are still processing these documents, but what seems to have happened based on what they’ve figured out already is the Chinese owners of some of the country’s cobalt and copper mines funneled money earmarked for the country’s coffers through this bank, that money went into accounts held by the President’s friends and family members, whose names were on the documentation for shell companies, and these Chinese companies were then, mysteriously able to attain no-bid contracts for much of the country’s mineral wealth during Kabila’s time in office.
—Bloomberg
