As if the embarrassments caused by the Cocaine seizure onboard Sierra Leone’s diplomatic vehicle inside Guinea and the reported aiding and abetting and cover-up of an international drugs magnate and fugitive, Jos Leijdekkers is not enough, two people very close to State House, Ismail El-Abbouti and Mary Jatu Kosia are busy scamming and fleecing huge sums of cash from investors with reckless abandon.
This time round, their victims are: Gino Thys, Hilda Macauter and Bruno Frateur whom collectively, El-Abbouti and Kosia have fleeced over One Million United States Dollars and an additional over Seven Hundred Thousand Euros.
Ismail El-Abbouti is an official appointee of President Julius Maada Bio as Special Envoy for trade and Investment representing the Government of Sierra Leone; Mary Jatu Kosia is a shadow adjutant of Envoy El-Abbouti in Sierra Leone who receives targeted investors on the instruction of El-Abbouti extorts cash from these victims using all deception and manipulation tactics. El-Abbouti and Kosia had introduced themselves as associates to these three victims and that they are actively engaged in diamond mining and selling in Sierra Leone with high connections with top government officials through Kosia’s connections.
This well planned and orchestrated scamming and thievery started from 2019 on to 2020. Between these dates, a certain Ms. Bortokali A. a partner of Mr. Ismail El-Abbouti introduced herself a diamond cutting firm in Holland, Diamondsawfactory Debels BVBA in Antwerp and proposed that she has rough diamonds that she wants processed. Perhaps as a ploy to attract potential victims and it worked, discussions started regarding further collaboration with Mr. El-Abbouti and his associate in Freetown, Ms. Mary Kosia.
It is revealed that after several meetings on the proposal to collaborate, a verbal (gentleman’s agreement) agreement was reached between a certain Mr. Philip Debels, Mr. Gino Thys on one hand, and Mr. EL-About and Ms. Kosia to now begin officially exporting rough diamonds from Sierra Leone to Antwerp.
To facilitate documentation and financial transactions to Sierra Leone, an undisclosed sum was remitted to a certain Mr. Jamal El-Abbouti, a brother of Ismail El-Abbouti, who it was said, was responsible for facilitating financial transactions to Sierra Leone on behalf of the senior El-Abbouti.
Our investigation has proved that after the initial payment for facilitation, and processing of documentations for the supposed first consignment of rough diamonds, the consignment that was delivered according to findings: “did not meet the quality of the samples presented to them and there were no documentations to show. But Ismail El-Abbouti however assured that by the date of the second shipment, the issues of documentation would have been rectified. According to our sources, the documentation referred to here was never rectified as the investors were lured into another scam that was presented to them as a reality.
In 2020, Ismail El-Abbouti again presented another offer for what he described as “an exceptional batch of rough diamonds that included a massive 67-carats diamond and an accompanying “high quality stones” which sent the guys into a resource mobilization freak for the purchase, licensing and official shipment of the batch of this latest batch of diamonds.
In 2021, a Mr. Bruno got involved and he contributed a large quantity of rough diamonds as guarantee to the supplying party to be held in mutual trust as the proposed buying parties stumble over each other to raise the funds. At a given moment, Ismail El-Abbouti proposed to the buying party to use Mr. Bruno Frateur’s rough diamonds as collateral with a certain Lebanese Group in Brussels to secure the needed funds. Both parties had agreed that when the needed funds have been secured, Mr. Frateur’s 1, 650-carat diamonds would be returned to him. Securing the funds was one aspect but getting the authentic documentations and other relevant documents to facilitate the easy shipment of the consignment of diamonds shown to them by Ismail El-Abbouti including the huge 67-carats rough diamond; and for which an undisclosed sum of huge amount of cash had already been transferred through Ismail’s brother Jamal to Mary Kosia now remained the nightmare.
But between this moment and 2023, the duo, Ismail El-Abbouti and his associate, Mary Jatu Kosia got engaged in what the deceived investors described as “deliberate delays and deception”. Accordingly, the duo engaged in “a systemic pattern of delays, distorted information and disjointed explanations, and a lack of transparency regarding the way and manner funds transferred to them have been utilized.
Investigations have proved that during these maneuvering of El-Abbouti and Ms. Kosia, they at one point only showed what they claimed to be the official export license to the investors via WhatsApp video.
The investors having now been fully suspicious of the botched dealing of El-Abbouti and Ms. Kosia, decided to send an investigating team directly to Sierra Leone and it was Mr. Bruno Frateur who came.
“I found significant discrepancies between the initial promises and the actual financial transactions made for the said rough diamonds to be purchased,” Mr. Frateur stated.
Mr. Bruno Frateur in total awe revealed that he was told by Ismail El-Abbouti that the acquired rough diamonds have been used as collateral for financing an exceptional gold mining operation with a certain Lebanese company. “But this information was never relayed to us,” Mr. Frateur alarmed, noting that what he was told was at complete variance with the actual agreement between them and Ismail El-Abbouti and Mary Kosia.
As it is now the three afflicted investors say they have incurred huge financial and material losses throughout the period under review and they have through a Belgium Attorney, Meester Kris Luyckx of the Desdalex Law Firm in Belgium complained officially to the Headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department in Freetown demanding justice in what the lawyer has described as “a serious case of fraud, breach of contract, and abuse of trust.”
The lawyer has claimed that Ismail El-Abbouti and Mary Jatu Kosia between 2023 and 2025 have generated substantial profits from the gold mining they claimed to have entered into without any expressed agreement from the fund owners. Nightwatch has been previewed with loads of WhatsApp voice message exchanges, videos and photographs of key aspects to this well calculated and executed international scam that is likely to again drag the name of Sierra Leone into the cesspit.
The three investors who have been so scammed and fleeced by Ismail El-Abbouti, the President’s Special Envoy for Trade and Investment and a stationed con-lady associate in Freetown who makes their potential preys to believe she has top-notch and high-level connections at State House and across the Government are now demanding refund of their monies. Mr. Philip Debels and Mr. Gino Thys to be refunded, 650, 000 Euros (Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand Euros); Mr. Bruno Frateur-rough diamonds valued at One Million, Four Hundred and Two Thousand, Five Hundred United States Dollars (USD 1, 403, 500) and Ms. Hilda Macauter, One Hundred and Eleven Thousand, Five Hundred Euros (Euro 113. 500)
This scam inflicted on these three investors by Sierra Leone’s duo, Ismail El-Abbouti and Mary Jatu Kosia has had a combination of negative psychological, financial, social and security on these plundered people who out of goodwill wanted genuine business dealings with Sierra Leone if not for these two vampires.