Mutombo’s 375 kilograms of gold
The Houston Chronicle was first to cover the bizarre story of former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo’s botched gold job (after the UN published a report on it in December). Now The Atlantic also has a piece. The main players are Mutombo himself, a Houston businessman, a former West Point football player and Congolese army general and war criminal Bosco Ntaganda. Like all accounts about the ‘trading’ of minerals in Eastern Congo, it gets messy. Many other media ran away with the story, so we got to read again and again about the 4,5 ton of gold Mutombo planned on buying and reselling. The Atlantic also embedded a Powerpoint presentation which Mutombo used to convince potential ‘investors’ to get in on the deal. Strangely, the presentation talks about a “purchase quantity” of 375 kg of gold. I’m trying to figure out how those 375 kilograms turned into the 4,5 tons that are splashed all over the media.
Still, what was Mutombo thinking?
