General Gabriel Amisi Kumba (known as “Tango Four”), sanctioned by the EU and US for human rights abuses...[traded timber licences in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)...Global Witness reveals...Amisi’s family obtained five logging concessions in June 2018, in contravention of DRC’s longstanding moratorium on the allocation of industrial logging concessions...

The DRC’s Minister of Environment had confiscated these licences from other logging companies without warning, before transferring them to Amisi’s family-held company, Maniema Union 2...Within weeks, the Amisi family sold the company and its licences on to Lei Hua Zhang, a Chinese timber magnate who is an owner of a sizeable but mysterious logging company operating in DRC.

Peter Jones, Campaign Leader, Global Witness said, “General Amisi, a powerful Kabila regime insider, appears to have managed to acquire and sell on logging licences at record speed, even though obtaining new licences was illegal at the time...“This raises fears that Congolese elites close to power have been able to flout environmental regulations to make money, potentially lining the pockets of politically-connected individuals at the expense of the Congolese treasury and the country’s forests. This is especially worrisome as DRC’s controversial elections appear to have resulted in a coalition arrangement that allows Kabila to remain highly influential in DRC politics despite not having stood for president,” added Jones.

Global Witness wrote to General Amisi and contacted his lawyer by telephone, but did not receive a substantive response...Lei Hua Zhang acquired Amisi’s permits by buying Maniema Union 2, which was held at the time by Amisi’s wife and children...

“The patchy information around Wan Peng’s DRC logging operations is reflective of an opaque sector more broadly,” said Jones. “It’s vital that the country’s timber sector is run transparently so that logging activities in one of the world’s most climate-critical forests do not carry on without any effective oversight, as the results would be devastating.” In response to questions from Global Witness about Wan Peng’s business in DRC, including links to Amisi, a spokesman said that our enquiries pertained to trade secrets and that they were not at liberty to disclose any information.