Dabire detained in Angola

Portal De Angola reports (via Google Translate from portugeuse), “Ivorian businessman Dabine Dabire detaned in Angola for ‘mockery and corruption”. Dated May 21, 2018, the article states that Dabire had been in Angola for more than a year. He proposed to authorities a (via Google Translate), “fictitious proposals for the construction of new cities in several provinces…”.

Until his detention, he was staying in the luxurious Hotel Talatona, now considered the most expensive in Luanda, and allegedly had “all the support of the Angolan authorities who placed security agents for their protection in the capital of the country.”

In that hotel, Dabine Dabire would have held several meetings with senior state ofcials and private entrepreneurs to address possible partnerships and ask them to enter with small stakes in projects where he would reportedly be the primary nancier.

According to the same denunciations, he was even received by the then President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos, as well as by the current head of state, João Lourenço, and promised to invest eight billion US dollars in Angola.

He would have begun to arouse suspicion about his suitability when “he began to be threatened with eviction from the Hotel Talatona for lack of payment of his daily expenses.”

A series of articles on Club-K website (via Google Translate):

• March 12, 2018 — Ivorian citizen poses as entrepreneur and mocking Angolan regime
• March 23, 2018 — Right of reply: Ivorian citizen denies mock charges against Angolan regime
• March 25, 2018 — Ivory Coast businessman reiterates that he will build four cities in Angola
• May 18, 2018 — But Group says it has carried out an urban diagnosis of three Angolan provinces
• May 19, 2018 — Authorities hold Ivorian businessman

This is all we know about his arrest. Thank you to an alert reader who submitted this story.

Update #1 — Dabire not Ivorian citizen

• June 1, 2018 — [Dabine Dabire] arrested in Luanda is not Ivorian
• June 1, 2018 — Côte d’Ivoire Ambassador says Dabine Dabire is not Ivorian
• June 1, 2018 — Ambassador denounces Ivorian nationality of entrepreneur detained in Angola