Prison in Free Town
Having grown up in an employee-minded household I didn’t possess a lot of the knowledge required to succeed as an entrepreneur. The time I spent as a dutiful employee (albeit in a Fortune 500 company) only served to entrench this deficit. For instance, as an employee, one often takes for granted how difficult it is for a customer (buyer) to trust an unknown supplier (seller). Companies work for years, decades, even centuries establishing themselves as a trustworthy “brand”. A lot of money is spent on marketing in order that customers part with their money. The same holds true for ANY transaction. One of the challenges I faced very early on was that it was nearly impossible to get a seller of diamonds to trust that there was a genuine buyer at the other end.
Escalation…
Through one of the brokers I had come into contact with during my “gold rush phase” (origin story here), I got put in touch with a seller of diamonds in Sierra Leone. This broker (who had I never met in person) was based somewhere in Europe. However, they convinced me that the seller was akin to their “brother” and they had done numerous transactions together and that (swearing by everything under the sun by this point) I would not lose money. So having done the little due diligence that one can do from over 8000km away (like with the Côte d’Ivoire opportunity, due diligence was conducted through the internet, skype and emails). I decided to jump on a plane to Free Town. The plan was to see for myself if the seller was legit and then set up a transaction with an Israeli buyer OR another buyer of ours from the Congo. My business partner would travel to Free Town once I had confirmed and would then see the transaction through to conclusion.
Sierra Leone
The experience was an interesting one: Going to a country I had never been before to meet someone I had never met before and initiate a transaction in one of the most con-artist-saturated industries in the world… From the time I touched down, I was blown away by the lack of infrastructure. My flight arrived after the last ferry from the airport to the city had left, so I was baptised by the bumpy 30-minute sea taxi ride across the lagoon. The next surprise came when I arrived at the modest accommodation that my $150 dollars I had budgeted would buy me. All in all the first impression was discouraging. I met my contact who was supposed to be the “seller”, but turned out to be a broker himself. He, however, guaranteed me (I was not reassured) that he could TAKE me to the real seller in the morning.
The next morning, I was shepherded into a small house and shown a basket full of diamonds. We discussed a little around procedure and it was agreed that there was business to be done. I communicated with the other parties that Mr. Wattara had checked out and that it was safe to arrive. My job was done and after some tourist activities put together by my hosts, it was time for me to leave.
The Con
I was safely back in South Africa when I got the call. The Wattaras had stolen our buyer’s money and my partner had been arrested. Apparently, a deposit had been demanded by the seller in order to complete all the paper-work necessary for the parcel to leave the country. The diamonds had been checked, vetted and sealed before being booked into the authority’s office for the final formalities. Normally, after booking the parcel in, it may no longer be opened. The buyer left the country with his sealed parcel.
On arrival at his destination, it discovered that the parcel had been swapped (surprise, surprise). An urgent call to the authorities in Sierra Leone was made and my partner and I were flagged as accomplices to a greater conspiracy. With only my partner still being in the country, he was promptly detained, while Mr. Wattara, my contact and the european broker that had put us all in touch disappeared and/or feigned ignorance. Suddenly, no-one knew ANYONE… Brothers became strangers…
Dark Days
We laboured to get my business partner out of the hellish conditions of a Sierra Leonean holding prison. Contacts from across the continent were involved, including a family friend at the AU to argue his innocence and try to broker his release. The conditions, as he later described to us, were something akin to prisoner of war camps: With mistreatment, hunger and unsanitary conditions all being standard. You did not eat unless you could afford money for bribing the guards – DAILY. After almost 8 weeks, his release was secured after Mr. Wattara and his accomplices were rounded up somewhere near the border to Guinea and they exposed the rest of the ring.
Lessons Learned
This experience, one of the many we have endured on the continent, reinforced to us the wealth available in Africa. Although things went south in this case, we witnessed first hand the opportunities that are available. What however had to change for us was playing a “brokering” role in transactions for Diamonds or Gold. We decided there and then that any transactions in the commodities space (whether they be for precious stones, minerals or even food-stuffs) would only be undertaken if we were on either end of the transaction: Buyer or Seller. Only this way would our interests be safe-guarded and/or enforceable. Since then, we have “parked” our interest in precious metals or stones. We now know where and how to get them – and they are not going anywhere.
