THE Panama Papers data leak has unmasked the people originally behind a highly controversial Congolese oil deal that was fronted by President Jacob Zuma’s nephew Khulubuse Zuma.One is South African businessman Mark Willcox, although in 2010, he told amaBhungane that he held no financial interest in the deal, however remote. Willcox was then CEO of Tokyo Sexwale’s Mvelaphanda Holdings, and Sexwale served in Zuma’s cabinet at the time.The other is the family of controversial Israeli citizen and diamond scion Dan Gertler, a personal friend of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila. Gertler’s stake was made public in 2012, two years after the deal.Hidden behind layers of offshore opacity, Willcox and Gertler’s family were intended to be the original owners of Caprikat and Foxwhelp, the mysterious British Virgin Islands (BVI) companies to which Kabila handed highly sought-after oil rights in June 2010, according to the leaked papers.Willcox said this week he never acc...
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