For decades, Congo-Brazzaville have been ranked among the poorest countries in the world. At the same time, thousands of members of the kleptocratic Congolese government and their families have feasted upon the country’s public treasury from the turn of the 21st century to this day.
Corruption has become the norm. Instead of collective national prosperity, the Nguessos and acolytes have made sure no one else is better positioned than them when it comes to controlling key ministries in the country, where they can easily control cash flow through the ministry of finances, national security for personal agendas through the interior ministry; the ministry of defense to control and terrorize defenseless and unarmed poor citizens, and more importantly, the ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation to spread their lies and act like caring leaders.
Since he regained power back in 1997 as a result of a civil war that he triggered, Denis Sassou Nguesso, the Congolese dictator, has made sure his government, the military (which he controls), the National Assembly, as well as the judicial system, are filled with either members of his extended families or friends. Nepotism at its best.
Whoever is familiar with Congolese politics and economy has probably heard or read in a newspaper names like Claudia Sassou Nguesso, Christel Sassou Nguesso, Jean Jacques Bouya, Jean Dominique Okemba, Lucien Ebata, Hughes Ngouelondele, and the list goes on and on and on.
In fact, all the names mentioned above and thousands of others are not intrinsically the most successful Congolese folks in terms of competence and/or leadership abilities, but their success is simply due to the fact they are either Sassou Nguesso’s sons, daughters, nephews, cousins, sons and daughters-in-law, or their close friends. All these folks have been and are part of a genuinely meticulous national wealth expropriation rampage. All are millionaires without any known legit business or patent.
Besides all those folks, other thievocratic members of the Nguesso government that have been around for decades have also elevated their extended family members to positions where they can manage to take advantage of the chaos and unfairly expropriate the wealth of the people by misappropriating government funds, to cite the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of kleptocracy.
In a two-decade period, billions of dollars have evaporated from the Congolese public treasury without accountability or question. In some rare occasions, the media, mostly international, have reported about it. But in most cases, financial crime, human rights abuses, corruption, and nepotism go unnoticed to the great satisfaction of the Nguessos and friends.
As a matter of fact, in almost every financial scandal, a member of the Congolese government or any member of the Presidential family is always mentioned. Below are cases where huge sums of money were misappropriated with impunity while more than 70% of the population don’t have access to basic necessities.
Probes Into the Nguessos
Mediapart is a French news outlet that has been exposing african kleptocrats who misaproprriate their countries wealth to acquire luxury assets specifically in France.
In 2013 Fabrice Arfi of Mediapart reported that the Congolese president and his family’s obscene “shopping” costs in Paris were meticulously documented by the police officials overseeing the alleged “ill-gotten gains” scandal. Investigators discovered that the primary source of the funds was the Congolese state’s coffers, through a network of offshore businesses. The dictator and his family spent 1.6 million euros for suits, 2.5 million euros for diamonds and watches, and 250,000 euros for shirts.
JULIENNE SASSOU NGUESSO AND HER HUSBAND
On June 26, 2017, TV5 Monde reported that the Congolese president’s daughter, Julienne Nguesso, and her husband – Guy Johnson – were indicted as they were being prosecuted by French justice for alleged acts of money laundering and embezzlement of public funds.
Guy Johnson, 53, is a lawyer, while Julienne Sassou Nguesso, 50, worked as an insurance agent. According to a source close to the situation, investigators were curious about the source of the money that allowed the couple to purchase a private property with seven rooms and an indoor swimming pool in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, in 2006.
An invoice totaling 5.34 million euros was added to that little over 3 million euro investment for significant work completed on the property between 2007 and 2011.
The financial transactions between San Marino banks and overseas businesses piqued the interest of the investigators, who depend on information from the Bercy anti-money laundering unit.
According to investigations, several millions of euros from public entities in Congo-Brazzaville had been transferred since 2007 to the accounts of various offshore companies based in the Seychelles, Mauritius, or Hong Kong, suspected of then partly fueling the extravagant lifestyle of certain members of the presidential clan, according to a source close to the matter.
Investigators believed that the couple would have financed part of the work through a Seychellois company funded by the proceeds from the sale of shares held by Julienne Sassou-Nguesso in a telecommunications company, which would be linked to “corruption operations,” according to the same source.
They also questioned the role of the president’s son-in-law, who appeared as the manager of an SCI that had acquired a private mansion in 2007 for some 19 million euros in the wealthy 8th arrondissement of Paris, and whose shares were notably held by the clan of Omar Bongo.
WILFRID NGUESSO
On March 29, 2017, Le Monde reported that Wilfrid Nguesso, the nephew of Denis Sassou-Nguesso, was caught by French and Canadian justices for “embezzlement of public funds.”
The nephew of the Congolese head of state, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, was indicted on Thursday, March 9, by French justice as part of the so-called “ill-gotten gains” investigation. According to our information, Wilfrid Nguesso, 50, is accused of “laundering embezzlement of public funds”.
Nicknamed “Willy”, this close friend of the president has officially led the Congolese Maritime Transport Company (Socotram) since 2006, whose shareholding is shared between the Congolese State (45%) and a company established in Liechtenstein, WGN Trading and Shipping SA , of which he was the economic beneficiary. He is also the head of the Port Services Management Company. That dual role gave him access to millions of euros in taxes levied on the activity of merchant ships and on oil loads exported from Pointe-Noire, the economic capital of the Congo.
DENIS CHRISTEL SASSOU-NGUESSO
Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso who is currently minister of International Cooperation and member of Congolese parliament representing Oyo, his father’s village turned electoral constituency, is one of Denis Sassou-Nguesso’s out of marriage children he had with a woman from DR Congo, despite being officially married to Antoinette Sassou-Nguesso.
Over the years, Christel Sassou-Nguesso A.K.A “Kiki” has been involved in several financial scandals related to ill-gotten assets in France, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries.
However, according to the instruction, these entities are shell companies and the real owner of these assets is Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso. The newspaper made the connection thanks to documents signed by him under those so-called companies. He is said to have issued around ten transfer orders equivalent to 800,000 euros for decoration work on the plush accommodation on rue Fresnel, in Paris. He also issued transfer orders of about 12 million euros on real estate projects and on the insurance of a private jet.
Private Mansions in Paris and Neuilly, France
In 2023, Radio France International reported that in 2020 and 2022, judges seized two private mansions in Paris and Neuilly, luxury accommodation owned by Congolese companies. According to the article, the Neuilly mansion which includes seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, a hair salon and a massage salon, would have cost 10 million euros.
The investigators also allegedly established that behind a fake identity and a fake email address, Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso transmitted his orders to notaries and architects. One of them replied with “Hello Mr Denis”.
His lawyer said that “the trial against African leaders is shocking”. According to Me Jean-Jacques Neuer, “France represented by its justice sets itself up as a moralist, as if it were saying that these countries were neither sovereign nor capable of judging themselves”.
This reaction from a lawyer who surely reaps the fruits of fraudulent wealth is far from being surprising. In addition to using false email addresses, the Nguesso even use bribery and corruption to have some the most influential French personalities on their side according to some news outlets.
Nearly $50 million embezzled, according to Global Witness
According to the British NGO Global Witness, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso embezzled nearly 50 million dollars from the Congolese state coffers.
According to Global Witness, Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso, appeared to have stolen more than $50 million from the Congolese treasury. The funds were diverted under the guise of an alleged bogus public works contract with Asperbras, a Brazilian infrastructure provider. To conceal the origin of the cash, they traveled through secrecy jurisdictions such as the US state of Delaware and the British Virgin Islands before arriving at Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso’s shell businesses in Europe.
Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso was the concealed owner of at least five EU-based shell firms, including three in Cyprus, one in Estonia, and one in Spain. He used the money to pay corporations in Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.
José Veiga, a businessman under investigation in Portugal for alleged corruption and money laundering in Congo, served as the frontman. The plan involved six European countries, one US state, and the British Virgin Islands, all of which played a crucial role in aiding Sassou-Nguesso’s embezzlement schemes.
As reported by Le Monde, José Veiga served as director of the Congolese subsidiary of the Brazilian group Asperbras. After the cancellation of the Congolese debt by Brazil in May 2013, the company obtained several large contracts.
To operate in Congo and satisfy the whims of the presidential family, José Veiga has woven a web of shell companies, according to the British NGO. One of them is called Gabox. It was created by the Portuguese on December 9, 2013 in Cyprus, on the sidelines of a $675 million contract sealed less than two weeks earlier between the Congolese state and one of the Asperbras subsidiaries established in Delaware ( UNITED STATES). But the opacity guaranteed by the American tax haven did not seem sufficient as Veiga created another shell company called Energy & Mining, established in the British Virgin Islands.
The latter signed a subcontract with Gabox on December 11, 2013. José Veiga’s Cypriot company is strangely chosen to carry out a “geological mapping and mineral prospecting project”. The following month, she received a transfer of $44.5 million from an Energy & Mining account opened at the Cape Verdean branch of the defunct Portuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo. Then, in February 2014, a new transfer of $1.6 million was made to Gabox’s account.
As the Portuguese police discovered during their investigation, Gabox is in fact entirely owned by another Cypriot company, Manzapo, whose director is the same José Veiga. This financial vehicle received $4.4 million from Energy & Mining in November 2014. But at the very top of this cascading financial arrangement is the Aliciero company, also established in Nicosia, the Cypriot capital. At its head is actually Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso. Because José Veiga discreetly “transferred all the shares” of the company to him, according to notarial acts from the office of the late Me Henriette Galiba, in Brazzaville.
The Portuguese businessman therefore handed over the orders for the offshore network to the son of the Congolese president. Global Witness demonstrated that Gabox and Manzapo thus find themselves controlled by “Kiki the oil man”, probable beneficiary of those nearly 50 million dollars. “which come from funds embezzled from state coffers, part of which was used to finance his train lavish lifestyle”, said Mariana Abreu, author of the survey for Global Witness. Just like his father, he was used to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on watches, suits and other luxury accessories in just a few days in Paris.
CLAUDIA SASSOU-NGUESSO
An apartment in Trump Tower in New York
Claudia Sassou Nguesso, communications director of the the Congolese presidency, was involved in a scandal just like her brother, as her name was linked with a $70million-dollar apartment in Manhattan, New York City.
Le Monde reported that Claudia also had a company in Cyorus and benefited from the financial package left by José Veiga to her brother “Kiki”. Still according to a Global Witness investigation published in April, the daughter and special advisor of the Congolese president allegedly used the financial circuits of the Portuguese intermediary to “steal almost $20 million from public funds.” Among her expenses: the acquisition, in the summer of 2014, of a luxury apartment in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York, worth more than $7 million. The Congolese government shamelessly denied all those factual accusations, specifying that “no Congolese public agent was involved in the purchase or possession of the apartment subject of this NGO’s report”. Rather than responding with documented facts, Brazzaville denounced “fake news” and a “media cabal”.
In 2019 The New York Times wrote that a company called Ecree owned “Unit 32G, a two-bedroom, 1,767-square-foot apartment with sweeping views of the park.” The company that apparently belonged to Claudia Sassou-Nguesso, bought the condo in 2014 for $7 million in cash.
Documents discovered “by the nonprofit group Global Witness” showed “that the purchase was funded by the daughter of the Republic of Congo’s president, a longtime target of anti-corruption investigators. The funds for the all-cash purchase appear to have been siphoned from that country’s government, according to a report by Global Witness.”
“The purchase took place more than two years before Donald J. Trump became president. Owners of units in the building — 1 Central Park West — pay tens of thousands of dollars a year in condo fees to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization.”
In addition to the Sassou-Nguessos’ money laundering madness, hundreds if not thousands of other individual with ties to the presidential family or those who belong to the second-tier, third-tier or even the fourth and fifth tiers of Congolese ruling class have learned from the Nguessos and embezzle funds designed for public projects on a monthly basis with impunity. Our next publication will tackle those individuals and their consequence-less embezzlement schemes.