Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07YAOUNDE1235
2007-10-15 13:08:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Yaounde
Cable title:
CAMEROON CORRUPTION INVESTIGATIONS: WHO IS DOOH
how-toVZCZCXYZ0018 PP RUEHWEB DE RUEHYD #1235/01 2881308 ZNY CCCCC ZZH P 151308Z OCT 07 FM AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8225 INFO RUEHSW/AMEMBASSY BERN PRIORITY 0030 RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 1658 RUEHLE/AMEMBASSY LUXEMBOURG PRIORITY 0002 RUEHOT/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA PRIORITY 0050 RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 1933 RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA PRIORITY 0780 RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME PRIORITY 0104 RUEHTC/AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE PRIORITY 0105
C O N F I D E N T I A L YAOUNDE 001235
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
STATE FOR INL/C AND AF/C
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA ACTION OFFICERS
PRETORIA FOR DHS/ICE
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2017
TAGS: KCOR PREL PGOV CM
SUBJECT: CAMEROON CORRUPTION INVESTIGATIONS: WHO IS DOOH
COLLINS?
REF: A. YAOUNDE 752 NOTAL
B. YAOUNDE 1068 NOTAL
C. YAOUNDE 1234
D. BROWN-SCHWING E-MAILS
Classified By: Poloff Tad Brown for reasons 1.4 b and d.
C O N F I D E N T I A L YAOUNDE 001235
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
STATE FOR INL/C AND AF/C
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA ACTION OFFICERS
PRETORIA FOR DHS/ICE
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2017
TAGS: KCOR PREL PGOV CM
SUBJECT: CAMEROON CORRUPTION INVESTIGATIONS: WHO IS DOOH
COLLINS?
REF: A. YAOUNDE 752 NOTAL
B. YAOUNDE 1068 NOTAL
C. YAOUNDE 1234
D. BROWN-SCHWING E-MAILS
Classified By: Poloff Tad Brown for reasons 1.4 b and d.
1. (C) Summary. Francis Dooh Collins is Justice Minister
Ali's chosen interlocutor with foreign governments regarding
the anti-corruption investigation Ali is spearheading
(reftels). Although some of Dooh Collins' outlandish claims
have given us reason to doubt his credibility, he has
succeeded in producing a mutual legal assistance (MLA)
request signed by Ali (septel),and he is, at least for the
time being, the Government of Cameroon's (GRC) chosen agent
for this purpose. In the interest of cultivating a more
professional, sustainable anti-corruption effort from the
GRC, we will seek to convince Ali to establish soon a
formalized structure to handle this and similar requests for
the GRC, which may also help minimize the wildcard factor of
Dooh Collins' inscrutable role. End summary.
--------------
Background
--------------
2. (C) Cameroonian Justice Minister Amadou Ali tapped
Francis Dooh Collins to act as the Government of Cameroon's
point person for a series of anti-corruption investigations
because, Ali said, Dooh Collins came from a highly reputed
Cameroonian family (ref b). Ali went on to say that he would
be willing to drop Dooh Collins if the USG had adverse
information or concerns about him.
3. (C) At the Ali's request, former Ambassador Marquardt
met with Dooh Collins and his American citizen colleague,
Robert Horwath, multiple times during the weeks of June 4 and
11 (ref a). Horwath has not been in any of the subsequent
meetings. Poloff met with Dooh Collins on September 12,
September 24 and October 10. Information from Dooh Collins
and Robert Horwath's business cards and Dooh Collins
Cameroonian National ID Card follows para 10-11.
--------------
Dooh Collins and The $1 Million
--------------
4. (C) In a September 12 meeting with Poloff that lasted
almost two hours, Dooh Collins expressed his general
confidence that the GRC's coordination with the USG, UK and
other countries was moving forward. Dooh Collins mentioned
the $1 million that Ali provided for the investigation (refs
a and b) and said he would ask Ali for more. In response to
Poloff's questions as to why even $1 million was needed, Dooh
Collins said the funds were needed to secure the cooperation
of foreign governments and other partners in the
investigation. Dooh Collins began by explaining that the
funds were used to "entice" Swiss and French intelligence to
provide relevant information because, Dooh Collins said, they
were otherwise busy and not interested in helping Cameroon.
He went on to say he also provided funds to UK intelligence
in order to secure their help and finished his explanation by
asserting he was using the funds to subsidize the travel and
work being done by the USG, specifically to the Department of
Homeland Security's ICE, to pay for two ICE officers to be
dedicated to the Cameroon file and to subsidize their travel.
Poloff repeated this information back to Dooh Collins to
verify, and Dooh Collins confirmed that he was claiming to
have provided funds to USG and other agencies in order to
subsidize and incentivize their cooperation with the
investigation. Poloff relayed this information to DHS
officials in Washington who vehemently denied Dooh Collins'
characterization (ref d).
5. (C) When Poloff revisited this issue during an October
10 conversation, Dooh Collins said that Ali would ask Biya
for a further $600,000 when Biya returns from Geneva. In
response to Poloff's asking why such large sums would be
needed, Dooh Collins said that he would need to pay for a
lawyer in Luxembourg and for other (unspecified) partners
contributing to the investigation. (Note: In the September
12 meeting, Dooh Collins said he was working with Andre
Lutgen, a lawyer in Luxembourg. End Note.)
--------------
The French Factor
--------------
6. (C) In the September 12 meeting with Poloff, Dooh
Collins said that shortly after his birth in Cameroon his
family moved to France, where he spent most of his life and,
he said, worked for French intelligence. Dooh Collins
reported that the French Government had conveyed to him its
disapproval of this anti-corruption mission and told him not
to travel on his French passport while conducting it. Dooh
Collins said the French government had previously intervened
to sidetrack Cameroonian investigations because such inquests
inevitably turned up links to prominent French politicians
and businesses. Dooh Collins alleged that French
intelligence agencies had broken into Biya's office and
stolen from his desk the list of "suspects" and then leaked
it to the press in order to discredit the investigation.
Dooh Collins said that, for these reasons, the French were
not to be informed about the investigation (further info
about GRC suspicion of French opposition to the
anti-corruption effort at refs a and b). In the subsequent
October 10 meeting, Dooh Collins said he was hopeful that the
French Government might become more cooperative under the
leadership of Sarkozy.
--------------
Dooh Collins and Cameroonian Politics
--------------
7. (C) Dooh Collins is not shy about his personal ambitions
beyond the current investigation. He has shared with us
papers that he claims to have presented to Biya laying out
his ideas for restructuring a number of sensitive sectors in
Cameroon, including the management of petroleum revenues and
public debt. On October 10, he claimed that Biya has already
ceded tremendous authority to Ali and said it was almost a
foregone conclusion that Biya would tap Ali to succeed him in
2011. Dooh Collins said that a cabinet reshuffle planned for
March 2008 would dismiss Prime Minister Inoni and name as his
replacement the current Assistant Secretary General at the
Presidency (and Anglophone),Philomen Yang. Dooh Collins
asserted that "there are many dossiers" on Inoni, including
one for Inoni's involvement in the Albatross affair, but that
Inoni was left out of the GRC's investigation for the time
being in order to avoid angering his Anglophone base of
support.
--------------
Dooh Collins's Next Travel
--------------
8. (C) Dooh Collins has now spoken with diplomatic missions
in Yaounde of the US, UK, Canada, Holland, and Italy. Dooh
Collins said that he will travel to Geneva, Luxembourg and
London sometime after October 15 to meet with officials
contributing to the investigation. Dooh Collins expressed an
interest in returning to the US to meet with USG officials in
Washington and Miami, but said he would put off his trip to
await feedback from Washington on the MLA he has submitted.
--------------
Comment: Mitigating the Wildcard
--------------
9. (C) Comment. Dooh Collins has thus far been a critical
element of Ali's ambitious plan to tap international sources
for an anti-corruption investigation. His claims to be using
GRC funds to pay off foreign governments, including the USG,
trouble us, but Dooh Collins' credibility has little bearing
on the larger objective of GRC-USG cooperation on
anti-corruption. Leaving aside the personality of Dooh
Collins, a serious anti-corruption investigation, involving
multiple agencies from multiple governments, will require a
more formalized system of exchange. In the interest of
cultivating a more professional, sustainable anti-corruption
effort from the GRC, we will seek to convince Ali to
establish soon a formalized structure to handle this and
similar requests for the GRC, which may also help minimize
the wildcard factor of Dooh Collins' inscrutable role. End
comment.
10. (SBU) Information from Dooh Collins' Cameroonian
National ID Card:
Name: Francis Ebosse Theodore Dooh Collins
Date of Birth: February 23, 1960
Father: Henri Ned Collins Dooh
Mother Riquette Borgy
Profession: Accounting Expert
Height: 1.77 meters
Weight: 91
Number 106991164
Issued October 29, 2005
End information from Dooh Collins' Cameroonian National ID
Card.
11. (SBU) Information from business cards left by Dooh
Collins and Robert Horwath:
Petroleum Advising Services (PAS) Ltd.
Francis Dooh Collins
Managing Director-Finance & Project
16, chemin des Morettes
1273 arzier/VD - Switzerland
Tel : 41 78 888 88 89 Fax : 41 22 366 00 48
Cell : 41 786 06 83 23 / 333 89 62 84 40
E-mail : petroladvise@hotmail.com
(written in hand: 75-82-03-88)
Robert Horwath
Managing Director - Shipping
16, chemin des Morettes
1273 arzier/VD - Switzerland
Tel : 41 78 888 88 89
Fax : 41 22 366 00 48
Cell : 41 789 08 98 91
E-mail : goptasltd@hotmail.com
End information from business cards left by Dooh Collins and
Robert Horwath.
NELSON
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
STATE FOR INL/C AND AF/C
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA ACTION OFFICERS
PRETORIA FOR DHS/ICE
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2017
TAGS: KCOR PREL PGOV CM
SUBJECT: CAMEROON CORRUPTION INVESTIGATIONS: WHO IS DOOH
COLLINS?
REF: A. YAOUNDE 752 NOTAL
B. YAOUNDE 1068 NOTAL
C. YAOUNDE 1234
D. BROWN-SCHWING E-MAILS
Classified By: Poloff Tad Brown for reasons 1.4 b and d.
1. (C) Summary. Francis Dooh Collins is Justice Minister
Ali's chosen interlocutor with foreign governments regarding
the anti-corruption investigation Ali is spearheading
(reftels). Although some of Dooh Collins' outlandish claims
have given us reason to doubt his credibility, he has
succeeded in producing a mutual legal assistance (MLA)
request signed by Ali (septel),and he is, at least for the
time being, the Government of Cameroon's (GRC) chosen agent
for this purpose. In the interest of cultivating a more
professional, sustainable anti-corruption effort from the
GRC, we will seek to convince Ali to establish soon a
formalized structure to handle this and similar requests for
the GRC, which may also help minimize the wildcard factor of
Dooh Collins' inscrutable role. End summary.
--------------
Background
--------------
2. (C) Cameroonian Justice Minister Amadou Ali tapped
Francis Dooh Collins to act as the Government of Cameroon's
point person for a series of anti-corruption investigations
because, Ali said, Dooh Collins came from a highly reputed
Cameroonian family (ref b). Ali went on to say that he would
be willing to drop Dooh Collins if the USG had adverse
information or concerns about him.
3. (C) At the Ali's request, former Ambassador Marquardt
met with Dooh Collins and his American citizen colleague,
Robert Horwath, multiple times during the weeks of June 4 and
11 (ref a). Horwath has not been in any of the subsequent
meetings. Poloff met with Dooh Collins on September 12,
September 24 and October 10. Information from Dooh Collins
and Robert Horwath's business cards and Dooh Collins
Cameroonian National ID Card follows para 10-11.
--------------
Dooh Collins and The $1 Million
--------------
4. (C) In a September 12 meeting with Poloff that lasted
almost two hours, Dooh Collins expressed his general
confidence that the GRC's coordination with the USG, UK and
other countries was moving forward. Dooh Collins mentioned
the $1 million that Ali provided for the investigation (refs
a and b) and said he would ask Ali for more. In response to
Poloff's questions as to why even $1 million was needed, Dooh
Collins said the funds were needed to secure the cooperation
of foreign governments and other partners in the
investigation. Dooh Collins began by explaining that the
funds were used to "entice" Swiss and French intelligence to
provide relevant information because, Dooh Collins said, they
were otherwise busy and not interested in helping Cameroon.
He went on to say he also provided funds to UK intelligence
in order to secure their help and finished his explanation by
asserting he was using the funds to subsidize the travel and
work being done by the USG, specifically to the Department of
Homeland Security's ICE, to pay for two ICE officers to be
dedicated to the Cameroon file and to subsidize their travel.
Poloff repeated this information back to Dooh Collins to
verify, and Dooh Collins confirmed that he was claiming to
have provided funds to USG and other agencies in order to
subsidize and incentivize their cooperation with the
investigation. Poloff relayed this information to DHS
officials in Washington who vehemently denied Dooh Collins'
characterization (ref d).
5. (C) When Poloff revisited this issue during an October
10 conversation, Dooh Collins said that Ali would ask Biya
for a further $600,000 when Biya returns from Geneva. In
response to Poloff's asking why such large sums would be
needed, Dooh Collins said that he would need to pay for a
lawyer in Luxembourg and for other (unspecified) partners
contributing to the investigation. (Note: In the September
12 meeting, Dooh Collins said he was working with Andre
Lutgen, a lawyer in Luxembourg. End Note.)
--------------
The French Factor
--------------
6. (C) In the September 12 meeting with Poloff, Dooh
Collins said that shortly after his birth in Cameroon his
family moved to France, where he spent most of his life and,
he said, worked for French intelligence. Dooh Collins
reported that the French Government had conveyed to him its
disapproval of this anti-corruption mission and told him not
to travel on his French passport while conducting it. Dooh
Collins said the French government had previously intervened
to sidetrack Cameroonian investigations because such inquests
inevitably turned up links to prominent French politicians
and businesses. Dooh Collins alleged that French
intelligence agencies had broken into Biya's office and
stolen from his desk the list of "suspects" and then leaked
it to the press in order to discredit the investigation.
Dooh Collins said that, for these reasons, the French were
not to be informed about the investigation (further info
about GRC suspicion of French opposition to the
anti-corruption effort at refs a and b). In the subsequent
October 10 meeting, Dooh Collins said he was hopeful that the
French Government might become more cooperative under the
leadership of Sarkozy.
--------------
Dooh Collins and Cameroonian Politics
--------------
7. (C) Dooh Collins is not shy about his personal ambitions
beyond the current investigation. He has shared with us
papers that he claims to have presented to Biya laying out
his ideas for restructuring a number of sensitive sectors in
Cameroon, including the management of petroleum revenues and
public debt. On October 10, he claimed that Biya has already
ceded tremendous authority to Ali and said it was almost a
foregone conclusion that Biya would tap Ali to succeed him in
2011. Dooh Collins said that a cabinet reshuffle planned for
March 2008 would dismiss Prime Minister Inoni and name as his
replacement the current Assistant Secretary General at the
Presidency (and Anglophone),Philomen Yang. Dooh Collins
asserted that "there are many dossiers" on Inoni, including
one for Inoni's involvement in the Albatross affair, but that
Inoni was left out of the GRC's investigation for the time
being in order to avoid angering his Anglophone base of
support.
--------------
Dooh Collins's Next Travel
--------------
8. (C) Dooh Collins has now spoken with diplomatic missions
in Yaounde of the US, UK, Canada, Holland, and Italy. Dooh
Collins said that he will travel to Geneva, Luxembourg and
London sometime after October 15 to meet with officials
contributing to the investigation. Dooh Collins expressed an
interest in returning to the US to meet with USG officials in
Washington and Miami, but said he would put off his trip to
await feedback from Washington on the MLA he has submitted.
--------------
Comment: Mitigating the Wildcard
--------------
9. (C) Comment. Dooh Collins has thus far been a critical
element of Ali's ambitious plan to tap international sources
for an anti-corruption investigation. His claims to be using
GRC funds to pay off foreign governments, including the USG,
trouble us, but Dooh Collins' credibility has little bearing
on the larger objective of GRC-USG cooperation on
anti-corruption. Leaving aside the personality of Dooh
Collins, a serious anti-corruption investigation, involving
multiple agencies from multiple governments, will require a
more formalized system of exchange. In the interest of
cultivating a more professional, sustainable anti-corruption
effort from the GRC, we will seek to convince Ali to
establish soon a formalized structure to handle this and
similar requests for the GRC, which may also help minimize
the wildcard factor of Dooh Collins' inscrutable role. End
comment.
10. (SBU) Information from Dooh Collins' Cameroonian
National ID Card:
Name: Francis Ebosse Theodore Dooh Collins
Date of Birth: February 23, 1960
Father: Henri Ned Collins Dooh
Mother Riquette Borgy
Profession: Accounting Expert
Height: 1.77 meters
Weight: 91
Number 106991164
Issued October 29, 2005
End information from Dooh Collins' Cameroonian National ID
Card.
11. (SBU) Information from business cards left by Dooh
Collins and Robert Horwath:
Petroleum Advising Services (PAS) Ltd.
Francis Dooh Collins
Managing Director-Finance & Project
16, chemin des Morettes
1273 arzier/VD - Switzerland
Tel : 41 78 888 88 89 Fax : 41 22 366 00 48
Cell : 41 786 06 83 23 / 333 89 62 84 40
E-mail : petroladvise@hotmail.com
(written in hand: 75-82-03-88)
Robert Horwath
Managing Director - Shipping
16, chemin des Morettes
1273 arzier/VD - Switzerland
Tel : 41 78 888 88 89
Fax : 41 22 366 00 48
Cell : 41 789 08 98 91
E-mail : goptasltd@hotmail.com
End information from business cards left by Dooh Collins and
Robert Horwath.
NELSON