Suspicious death, on the run and in custody. Here is the big Guinean thriller that keeps the Pandoras of Scotland Yard awake.
The man who led the Central Bank of the Republic of Guinea (BCRG) for more than ten years (from 2010 to 2021) under Alpha Condé, is plunged into turmoil against the backdrop of a refining contract affair, storage and sale of gold between the BCRG and the Belgian refiner AFFINOR. Sacked by Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya on December 7, 2021, Dr Louncény NABE has since been regularly placed in police custody and interviewed at the Central Directorate of Judicial Investigations of the National Gendarmerie (DCIJ-GN). The former Governor of the Central Bank of Guinea is suspected by the investigators of having tied up a gold purchase contract on the basis of “over the counter”. But the substance of this file worthy of the “Casa de Papel” lies elsewhere.
According to several sources, the Belgian AFFINOR, which is one of the three operators which refines and manages the external gold stocks of the BCRG and which, thanks to the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) label, allows entry of the gold extracted in Guinea on the international market refuses to return the gold stocks of Guinea supposed to be stored in its safes (more than 3 tons), following a request from the new authorities.
Determined to recover this reserve of monetary gold from the BCRG stored by AFFINOR, whose role is, moreover, to resell if necessary on behalf of Guinea and repatriate foreign currencies, the new authorities do not intend to let go of the matter. .
According to several sources, Conakry is with a view to terminating the contract between the BCRG and AFFINOR to regain possession of the stock of gold and, possibly, to transfer it to another refining and management operator. What the Belgian operator does not intend to concede because, he argues, the procedure for terminating the contract would not have been respected.
The origin of suspicion
In March 2021, the BCRG and AFFINOR, an operator based in Genk in Belgium, signed a contract for the refining and storage of gold from the Guinean Central Bank. The contract stipulates that Affinor is responsible, in return for remuneration, for refining and storing BCRG’s gold. Affinor may need and at the request of the Guinean Central Bank, resell this labeled gold on the international market and repatriate the monetary value to it in foreign currency, Guinea not currently having a National structure holding the LBMA label stamp for direct entry into the international market. On the basis of this agreement, the BCRG will ship to AFFINOR, on April 1, 2021, a quantity of 12 tonnes of gold. The Belgian refiner will refine, store and then resell on behalf of the BCRG, 9 tons of gold and transfer the monetary value in foreign currency to the accounts of the central bank.
With the arrival of the CNRD, which overthrew the regime of Alpha Condé, on September 5, 2021, the new authorities made a major change at the head of the BCRG by replacing, at the beginning of December 2021, the governor of the bank Lounceny Nabé and his management team by Karamo Kaba from Ecofi Investissement France. At the beginning of February 2022, the latter, engaged in a dynamic of audit, control and above all moralization of the institution, is interested in the remainder of the gold sent to AFFINOR, i.e. the 3.14 tonnes of gold which represents 80% of the BCRG’s external gold reserves stored abroad with an estimated value of more than 185 million dollars, for the purpose of recording physical or monetary gold in the metal account of the BCRG at AFFINOR. A mission led at the beginning of February by the new governor of the BCRG, accompanied for this purpose by his auditor from the firm KPMG, was received by the leaders of AFFINOR, but met with a categorical refusal from the Belgian company. The ministerial mission remart without having had access to the reserve of the Bank of Guinea. It will have access neither to physical gold nor to the convertible monetary value of gold, the inalienable property of Guinea, according to the contractual clauses.
This plea of inadmissibility by AFFINOR to the new governor of the Guinean central bank will contribute to reinforcing the suspicion of the Guinean authorities on the real presence of this gold reserve in the safes of AFFINOR, a storage for which Guinea spent from 2018 to 2020 the trifle of 4 million euros. Lounceny Nabé who led the signing of the contract with AFFINOR is still in the clutches of the Central Directorate of Judicial Investigations of the National Gendarmerie (DCIJ-GN), the investigation is continuing.
Scotland Yard joins the dance
In the wake of the BCRG’s unsuccessful mission to AFFINOR, to ascertain the 3.14 tonnes of gold reserves of the BCRG, the general manager of affinor announces the freezing of all the accounts of the Guinean central bank in its company. Reason invoked, lack of conformity. The London police will finally take an interest in the file by opening an investigation into a specific Affinor transaction which will reveal the nebula around the remainder of the gold reserve of the Bank of Guinea. Scotland Yard discovered that of the 3.14 tonnes entrusted to AFFINOR, 1.8 tonnes of gold were received in an already refined state from Dubai. This gold would also have a link with a company called MSS. The same company, whose cargo containing 20 million dollars from Conakry was seized in August 2014 by Senegalese customs at Dakar airport, on a small carrier of the company Emirates bound for Dubai.
The transfer of these 1.8 tons of gold from Dubai to AFFINOR, a quantity included in the 3 tons of remainder frozen by the Belgian company, and which according to certain sources, would be the settlement of a debt due to the Guinean State by a third party, being dubious and not obeying the standards in this matter, the British authorities decided to impose a penalty of 37 million dollars on AFFINOR. The latter then accuses Guinea of not having respected its commitments in terms of compliance and decides in turn to freeze Guinea’s gold reserves that it holds. AFFINOR goes further, by deciding to make Guinea pay the bill imposed by London by deducting from the 3 tons, the equivalent of 37 million dollars in penalties and by announcing the pure and simple freezing of the rest of the reserves. As a result, Guinea can no longer take possession of its gold reserve, which represents 80% of its assets of the precious metal stored abroad.
The intriguing facts of the case
While Affinor thought he had found the ideal culprit by accusing the Guinean State of non-compliance, without providing more details, now Scotland Yard comes out of its reserve to give its version of the facts. The British sleuths refute the version of the Belgian company claiming that the penalty imposed on him by the London police was due to the so-called lack of conformity of the Guinean state.
More intriguing still, the death of the Boss of Interpol Guinea, Niouma Koïvogui and the disappearance of the representative of AFFINOR in Guinea, a certain Mamady Condé who would have taken to their heels towards Sierra Leone, after having made the commitment to restitution of the BCRG’s gold reserve and organized the Guinean delegation’s trip to AFFINOR’s headquarters in Genk, Belgium. The boss of Interpol Guinea, whose death is now considered suspicious, was preparing to lead a secret mission to arrest the fugitive AFFINOR representative. He was announced dead just before, on February 6, 3 months after taking office. Official reason: short illness. Meanwhile, Mamady Condé is still nowhere to be found.
Many gray areas to be elucidated in this case worthy of an American Polar. The new authorities seem stuck in a saga inherited from the old regime and of which they may not have mastered all the ins and outs. Was AFFINOR making “deals” in complicity with Guinean agents who would escape the control of the BCRG? Why did AFFINOR refuse the Guinean delegation to make a physical or monetary statement of the presence of gold in its reserve? Would AFFINOR have placed Guinea’s monetary gold on the financial markets in order to make profits on its own account and that of possible accomplices?
In any case, the Central Directorate of Judicial Investigations has a lot on the board to reconstruct the missing pieces of the puzzle after the obvious indications from Scotland Yard.
Given the freezing of 80% of the country’s external gold reserves, Guinea may have no choice but to seize the International Chamber of Commerce for arbitration.
