A Kenyan national who was once honoured with the ‘Lifetime Africa Achievement’ for humanitarian deeds by the Millennium Excellence Awards has been described as Africa’s number one gold smuggler.
An investigative documentary dubbed ‘Gold Mafia’ by the international media outlet, Al Jazeera has uncovered Kamlesh Pattni to be part of a syndicate with business networks that stretch across the continent that smuggles gold and launder money out of the continent.
The Millennium Excellence Awards in 2012 honoured Pattni with a Lifetime Africa Achievement Prize for outstanding humanitarianism and equity in Africa.
The awards ceremony was held at the Presidency State House in Nairobi, Kenya on December 15, 2012, and attracted the leadership of the African Union (AU), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and very eminent dignitaries from countries across the continent.
Pattni was awarded alongside other Heads of State including the late President Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, who was conferred with a posthumous prize for democratic governance and development in Africa; President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, the prize for leadership, national cohesion and stability and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who will receive the prize for nation building and African leadership.
At the time of his award, Kamlesh Pattni was facing several counts of fraud in a court case after he was implicated in a scandal that robbed Kenya of 10% of its GDP in the 1990s.
Kamlesh Pattni was accused of involvement in the so-called Goldenberg scam, a gold smuggling operation that robbed Kenya of $600 million and led to charges of corruption against many members of then-President Daniel Arap Moi’s government.
Pattni’s company, Goldenberg International, was granted an exclusive licence to export Kenyan gold, but instead, he allegedly smuggled gold from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
After years of prosecution, Pattni was acquitted in 2013.
He is now a self-proclaimed pastor and sometimes goes by the name Brother Paul, however, he is said to be running a similar scheme in Zimbabwe from his base of operations in Dubai.
The revelation is part of Al Jazeera’s Gold Mafia, a four-part series investigating some of Southern Africa’s largest gold smugglers and money launderers.
