By Kharon Staff
December 6, 2018
A business network of Hizballah financier Kassim Tajideen, who is scheduled for a December 6 plea hearing in the US, developed a high-rise building project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Tajideen, a Lebanese businessman extradited to the US in March 2017, was indicted for conspiracy to use businesses in the Middle East and Africa to evade sanctions. The US Department of the Treasury sanctioned Tajideen and seven of his companies between 2009 and 2010 for providing support to Hizballah.
The Hizballah money man was active in the Congo, where he and his brothers “were running cover companies in the food and diamond trades for Hizballah,” according to the US Treasury. One of these companies, Congo Futur, was sanctioned in 2010 for being owned by Tajideen.
Even after its sanction, Congo Futur conducted a construction project in the Congo’s capital Kinshasa for two commercial and residential towers. Two companies owned by Congo Futur — Kin Trading and Société Congolaise de Construction Moderne — served as the architect and contractor, respectively, for the ongoing project as of 2015.
Germany-based Heidelberg Cement company advertised that its cement was used in the construction of the 26-story towers. A 2015 archive of the company’s website reported that the project was scheduled for completion the following year, but work on both towers appeared to be ongoing as of late April 2018.
In 2016, Tajideen filed a claim in a US civil case saying that he “does not own or control Congo Futur.” According to the filing, Tajideen’s brother, Ahmed, controlled the Hizballah front company.
Ahmed Tajideen also owns Glory Group and serves as the contact person for Union Invest, which was examined in a September 14, 2018 Kharon Brief regarding Congo Futur’s successor entities in the Congo receiving shipments from Mexico.
View more
