Inside Ivor Ichikowitz’s Paramount empire
Is arms trader Ivor Ichikowitz a ‘man of Africa’, as he says, or is he gutting some of his assets in SA while building an offshore empire?
Ivor Ichikowitz rejects the label "arms dealer". The founder of Paramount, Africa’s largest private arms group, presents himself as an industrialist and philanthropist with a passion for the continent — an image buffed by a slick public relations machine.
But questions have previously been raised about the extent to which Ichikowitz may have benefited from his role as a "favourite courtier of African presidents Jacob Zuma, Ali Bongo and Denis Sassou Nguesso", as French publication Intelligence Online put it in 2016. And, more recently, critics have homed in on his image as a highly successful entrepreneur...
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