Press Release / / 02.16.22

Invitation – Tomorrow: Experts to Explore Biggest-Ever Africa Leak Investigations

RSVP for Special “Congo Hold-up” Event This Thursday:

Experts Explore Investigations Spurred by Africa’s Largest-Ever Data Leak

 

You are invited to attend a special online event: “The Congo Hold-up Investigation in Focus” this Thursday, February 17, 2022, 10am – 11am EST.

Please join The Sentry, Human Rights Watch, Resource Matters, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) for an exploration of the “Congo Hold-Up” series, a massive international investigation.

Event info and RSVP

The Congo Hold-up is a series of investigative reports by an international consortium of non-profit organizations and media outlets. Millions of leaked bank records obtained by the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF) and the French news group Mediapart and shared with The Sentry and other consortium partners by PPLAAF and European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) represent the largest confidential data leak in African history.

Since October 2021, nearly two dozen media organizations and NGOs collaborated to analyze close to 3.5 million leaked documents from BGFIBank Group, known as the “most powerful bank in Central Africa.”

Event Speakers:

  • Floribert Anzuluni, Senior DRC Policy Advisor to The Sentry
  • Ida Sawyer, Deputy Director, Africa Division, Human Rights Watch
  • Elisabeth Caesens,Founder and Executive Director, Resource Matters

Moderator:

  • Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, Director and Senior Fellow, Africa Program, CSIS

Read The Sentry’s groundbreaking Congo Hold-up investigative reports:

The Backchannel: State Capture and Bribery in Congo’s Deal of the Century”: A massive deal between Chinese state-owned engineering firms and the Democratic Republic of Congo to trade mineral wealth to fund urgently needed infrastructure projects concealed a multimillion-dollar embezzlement and bribery operation.

Embezzled Empire: How Kabila’s Brother Stashed Millions in Overseas Properties”: Red flags for corruption, money laundering, and other financial crimes were ignored as millions of dollars linked to the brother of the former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo traveled through a maze of business transactions and were stashed in quiet residential neighborhoods surrounding the US capital Washington, DC.

Learn more about the Congo Hold-up and read the other investigative reports from members of the consortium: https://congoholdup.com/en/

Event info and RSVP: https://www.csis.org/events/congo-hold-investigation-focus

For media inquiries or interview requests, please contact: Greg Hittelman, Director of Communications, [email protected]

 

About The Sentry

The Sentry is an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy.

Pull back the curtain on wars, mass atrocities, and other human rights abuses, and you’ll find grand corruption and unchecked greed. These tragedies persist because the perpetrators rarely face meaningful consequences. The Sentry aims to alter the warped incentive structures that continually undermine peace and good governance. Our investigations follow the money as it is laundered from war zones to financial centers around the world. We provide evidence and strategies for governments, banks, and law enforcement to hold the perpetrators and enablers of violence and corruption to account. These efforts provide new leverage for human rights, peace, and anti-corruption efforts.

Co-founded by George Clooney and John Prendergast, The Sentry is a strategic partner of the Clooney Foundation for Justice.